The Fall
by Fjodor
Summary: When brilliant people get tasked to teach other brilliant people that can only go well, right?
1. Prologue

"Have you heard Alex, Professor Alister won't be back this year."

"I have, seems like the position is still 'cursed.' you'd think that after six different teachers in as many years it would be expected that he would quit."

They walked and talked some more walking next to the Hogwarts express, the big red steam train that would be taking them and all the other students to Hogwarts ones more. It would be the last time that they would be entering the train to go to the school. As they were about to start their seventh and final year there. Six long years had they spend learning the ins and outs of magic. They had seen the wonderful ways that divination could predict the future, worked alongside their pears, forging friendships that would last a generation.

Entering the train, they moved as far to the back as they could go, reaching the open sitting area that Slytherin had claimed for the past thirty or so years. It was their bastion on the rails, they fortress they would use and protect to their last breath. Or at least till they reached Hogsmead. Then they would trade it for the stone walls and the magic that was contained within them of the Slytherin common room. That was the real place where they would hold a last stand, if that was ever needed. But for now, as with most things in the offensive category of actions that wasn't needed.

For now, the only protections they needed was the presents of their peers, it was a deterrent that had held of the other house's pranks for long enough. There they were now under the watchful eye of Draco Malfoy. His presence in the cabin was notable even for those of the lesser houses, Malfoy was running up to sit at the table of the great pureblood houses, so even during his schooldays he had been elevated to a position of honour among their ranks. As he had become older and 'wiser' there had been somethings he was able to do to for the Slytherin student body.

He had been the years representative since he was eleven years old, holding contact with teachers and outside interests that wanted to be kept in the loop about what the Slytherin students were doing, what they might be interested in after their school career. And now in his final year he had been elevated even higher to the student representative for the entire house. He was now on the table as the other Student representatives and the heads of the different houses to discuss the business that went on inside of the walls of Hogwarts.

"Morning Draco," they greeted him in unison. A nod of recognition was extended their way. It was all they were going to get, but that was fine, they were among the few that even would have gotten a reaction at all.

They settled in, taking solace that the chairs in here were among the best that existed, and revelled for a moment about sitting in his sphere of influence.

"Hey Draco, do you have any idea who will be the new professor for 'defence against the dark arts'?" Alex asked him, sitting back comfortably.

Looking up from the paper he was reading, Draco looked lost in thoughts for a mere moment. "I have to be honest here, there is nothing that I know about that position. I knew that it was empty, that Alister would be leaving us was a given, but there has been no news about it." He said placing the paper down and folding his hands. "Usually we get an heads up before the schoolyear starts, if not for me, my father would know about it. But even he was left in the dark, all he was about to get out of Dumbledore was that everything was going to go smoothly, and that every curriculum would be taught to the fullest of its plan."

He had now sat back in his own chair, leaving the paper where it had fallen in front of him. Alex could see that there was something bothering him, most people could see that.

"Why didn't they just send a message, even for us to know that there might be no one teaching the class." He let out frustrated.

"Draco, it might be like in our third year when Professor Lupin only formally joined the faculty in the second week, remember?" Parkinson said with a tone of sneering in her voice when she said the formers professor name.

The conversation died out a little after that point, Johnathan and Parkinson kept a little conversation going between the two of them.

As the train left Draco and Parkinson left to join the other prefects of a first meeting back during the schoolyear and to see who had been elected head boy for the year. They all lowkey hoped that Draco would bring it home with him, but the chances were slim. It had not been that long since the last time that they had had a head boy, in all likelihood it would be either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff that would be getting it. Both had been without the position for at least three years. Hufflepuff had even been out of the running for five whole schoolyears. Interlay in Slytherin there had been bets about who would be getting it.

The odds were stacked against Draco, about one to fifteen that he would become the head boy. Ravenclaw wasn't doing much better, they had had the position last year, so their odds were stacked heavily against them, but they had done it before on a few occasions. Consecutive years of Ravenclaw head boys was an occurrence that happened frequently enough to be taken into consideration.

But that was to no avail now. They just had to wait till Draco returned victoriously or subjugated under the new head of the Hogwarts student body.

The hours went by and all of the Slytherin students caught up with one another. Exchanging the latest news and curiosities they had heard of over the summer. When the trolley witch arrived, they pretty much bought out her entire supply of sweets and food. As they were the last people that she would be going to it was considerate of them to just take the lot instead of having her move back with a still somewhat filled cart.

Draco eventually returned with the news that Hufflepuff had a head boy now after an absence of five years. He was one Cedrick Diggory, the son of one of the heads of a department in the ministry. He was in Draco's words: 'At least he is one of the purebloods, that's maybe all he has going for himself at the moment, but it is something.'

They all kept discussing what they knew about Diggory, never letting the opportunity to get an edge on him pass by. After about fifteen minutes there was a fairly conclusive board drawn up that showed who he was and what his relations in Hogwarts meant. Most of those where in-house as expected but there were also the connections to the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw houses that bothered him a bit.

With Gryffindor he had connections to the Potter and Weasley families. The latter being the most influential of them. Ronald Weasley and his siblings had taken a large share out of the running's of the Gryffindor house. But their grip of power had been slipping in the last couple of years, every year they had lost one or more of their brothers.

Last year the twins had graduated under loud congratulations from the students and teachers alike. Their rein of pranks had come to an end. They had left the school with a firework display that would be talked about for the years to come. It had been amazing to see and the magic that went into it impressed most of the professors that where present.

Now though the Weasley clans only members where the boy and his sister, a gifted Quidditch player and an outstanding student. She had no trouble gathering the attention of the male students and had them wrapped around her finger.

Draco had to say that he was impressed with how easy she seemed to be able to pull that off. Looking all innocent and such while being the orchestrator of the demise of her enemies. They had never been in direct conflict, he had learned that diplomacy was a way that would work between them.

On the side of Ravenclaw there was little to say, he had a girlfriend that didn't belong to his house. They had been dating for the last couple of years, it was unclear if it had started before or after the Triwizard tournament. But it had been clear that during the year that he had needed to recover from the tournament she had barely left his side.

With all that in mind they could start out drawing the new maps of power that would be governing these halls for the coming year. It was not that much different from the year before. Every house still had strong relations with one another, Slytherin and Gryffindor where currently on the outs, but what's new. They couldn't stand each other in public.

In private they had found a fine way to coexist, it had taken about three years of diplomacy to get them to the table. It had been Draco's proudest moment in the school, negotiating a peace between the two houses. From that moment onwards, there would only be pranks that wouldn't cause structural damage to the castle. And there would also be no harm done to one another's students that would bring them into madam Pomphrey's care.

A knock could be heard from the entrance of their carriage, and as it was usual for the Slytherins to just come and go as they pleased, there was an outsider standing out there. As Alex approached the door Draco and Parkinson cleaned out the diagrams they had drawn and cleaned out the files they had on most of the other students of Hogwarts, power is knowledge as they say.

"Potter fancy seeing you here," Draco heard from the entrance. Spinning on his heal he saw the prefect of Gryffindor was standing in the doorway.

"Potter," the tone sounded like he wanted to destroy the ground Harry was standing on, but apparently, he didn't hear it or ignored it.

"Draco what are you doing hiding yourself away back here?" he walked in, greeting a couple of younger students before focusing back onto Malfoy.

"What do you want, potter?" He asked again. Stepping in his way, blocking his further entrance.

"Hi Evan, we still on for the game next month?" Harry just leaned round Malfoy as if he wasn't standing there.

"Potter!" Malfoy yelled, trying to gather the attention of his coequal.

"Draco, what are you yelling for?"

If he wasn't ready to punch the boy for frustrating him, he was now.

"For the last time, what do you want?" he said poking his finger into Harry's chest.

"Mate are you not forgetting the Slug club invitations that where delivered to us at the meeting earlier?" Harry held up an envelope that he handed to Malfoy.

"Potter, I see Slughorn on a near weekly basis already outside of classes. I have no interests in attending his stupid club." She whispered the last part a bit quieter.

"Draco, I know, you say this every year. But you must admit that the food that he servers there is miles beyond what we can get from the trolley witch.

Begrudgingly he had needed to agree to Potter, Slughorn knew how to cater on the train. And who was he to say no to a good meal.

"Fine Potter lead the way, Patty you are in charge now. If anything happens it is, your responsibility."

"Alright, we'll see you at the station then." Parkinson said as Draco closed the door.


	2. New teachers

Going back to Hogwarts Hermione was excited beyond belief, this was the year that she could start on her official thesis that would cap her school career off with a shining piece of research. She had started planning the subject for the better part of last year. Wanting to waste no time of her final year on such a mundane task. She would, however, need to convince one of the professors to sign off on the subject. She wasn't sure if McGonagall would approve, but that was only a small problem that she could solve. She might have to convince the new defence against the dark arts professor to be her supervisor. She'd always been good at making the professors like her.

"Luna?" She asked the blonde girl sitting across the cabin form herself, well sitting was a bit generous. She was spread out across the several seats; her head being cradled in Ginny's lap while reading the quibbler that had been published that morning.

"Hmn?" Kuna responded, not making any change in her position to indicated that she might be listening to her.

"When I walked onto the train you were talking about the fact that the Nargles were being more active than you'd seen them in years. If I remember correctly." She said wanting to have some kind of clarification from Luna about the topic. During her fifth year, she had been able to prove that the little creatures that Luna talked about might be grounded in some kind of reality. She could detect small traces of magic wherever Luna had pointed out that there was a load of Nargles collected in one spot.

"Oh, yes." Luna sat up straight, putting the quibbler aside.

"There were a bunch of them hanging around you, it was like they know what you'll be doing this year. They were saying that there are interesting times ahead for you." She concluded before taking an old copy of the quibbler out of her bag. One that Hermione had enchanted a couple of years ago for her birthday, it contained an undetectable expansion charm and a charm to make the contents of the bag weightless.

"Here, this copy explained them so well, they different things they might mean when hanging around certain people." Taking the monthly paper and flicking through it, she saw that there was a surprisingly well laid out flowchart.

'are there Nargles close by?' was the first question and it went from there. It had a myriad of outcomes that was spread out over the two-page spread. Ranging from having a bad day to becoming a living legend. There was little concrete evidence that Nargles were actually connected but it was a nice story.

"So, I am going to have an interesting year?" she asked Luna, who had already focused herself on the world strolling past the window.

"Yeah, they think so." She answered, taking a pencil out of her pocket and started doing the crossword in the back of her quibbler.

The latter part of the train ride was boring, Harry had been called away, Ronald had gone to find Seamus and Dean. She had been left alone in the cabin with Luna and Ginny. Both of them had kept to themselves, already have caught up over the summer there was little to speak about. This didn't really bother her; the silence was a nice precursor for the year to come. The ability to sit in silence and not have to do anything was a true gift.

Hogsmeade station approached at the fall of the night, Harry had not returned yet from the Slug club dinner, but they hadn't really expected him too. He had been invited to the slug club through the connections of his mother and later on the account that he was one of the best quidditch seekers that had walked the halls of Hogwarts for damn near a century.

Getting off the train they met up again with the boys, Ron and Harry had found each other and had spent the last hour playing wizard chess with Neville and some of the sixth year Gryffindor student. As was Harry's duty as prefect, looking out for the masses of students that fell under his supervision.

"Same old with Horace?" Ginny asked him when she wrapped an arm around her.

"Yeah the old geezer wants me to invite Hermione to his club for the fourth time," he looked over to her. "It is truly not as bad as you might think it is. It is just a lot of good food and a great conversation between the several parties that are represented. Occasionally there are even guests that came and explained how they were succeeding in their fields." Harry went on to explain, trying to guess what hemiones feeling was on the subject of joining this year.

"Harry like last year, and the year before that. If there is any reason for me to join, I would have years ago. But as far as I can see it is many a networking event for Slughorn to get some free stuff every once in a while." She said, snuffing out the hope he might have built up since leaving the dinner party.

"Anyway, there is a carriage that we need to catch," she said making her way through the students and laying claim to one of the carriages that weren't yet occupied.

"Come on guys you want to keep standing out there?" She said over her shoulder, relieved to find them following her diligently. Luna was dragging Neville along. While Ron and Ginny where already in a hot-headed discussion about quidditch and how the Harpies might be the best team in a generation. Ron was arguing against this point, saying that the cannons in 1986 had a great year and was unquestionably the better team. Ginny was almost in a fury and would have started hitting him if Harry wasn't holding her back. He was half laughing, half concerned for their safety getting them settled.

The drive up the road to Hogwarts was one that was not lit up, but all the carriages all carried torches, so it was clearly visible as a bright line. The line led all the way from the bottom of the train station to the foot of the castle in the distance. From where they were sitting it didn't yet look like the inviting place that they had spent most of the last couple of years inside of.

It needed to be dark for the moment though, the first years on the lake would be able to see it in its full glory as soon as it was in view. Then they would light the fires behind the windows, slowly showing the size and scale of the castle.

Having reached the castle they were rushed inside, making sure that they wouldn't be blocking the entrance. Professor Flitwick had put himself on top of a couple of crates and was motioning them to keep moving. Hermione greeted him with a nod before being pushed forward by a charm that had been placed on the entrance. They all quickly reached the great hall and took their seats at their respective tables. Luna had taken a seat on the Gryffindor table but not long after one of the Ravenclaw prefects came to fetch her.

The whole event was still somewhat the same as it had been seven years ago, a bunch of first years that weren't told anything walking into the hall between the four houses. It was a sight to see but also one that luckily only happened ones a year.

The sorting took a little longer than expected. While only fifty new students came in to fill the school with students there were a couple of them that took a bit longer of a time. Patricia Foolsert had sat on the chair with the sorting hat on for what was quickly approaching a record before she was declared a Hufflepuff.

She wasn't the only one either, Hufflepuff ran away with almost a majority of the students. Taking twenty of them home where the rest was left with around ten each. There was a small amount of panic in the eyes of the heads of the houses when Hufflepuff took the seventh consecutive one in. but in the end, there were enough for all of them to share.

Everyone was waiting for the meal to start, knowing full well that any announcements would happen after the meal. They were right because when Dumbledore rose to speak, he said but two words.

"Dig in." before he himself started eating and discussing something with McGonagall. Hermione looked over at the teacher's table and quickly counted the heads of everyone seated there. She was surprised when she came up two short. She knew that the defence against the dark arts hadn't been filled but there was also someone else missing. They'll hear about it later she reasoned digging in as the headmaster had said.

Halfway through the meal, the noise in the hall had grown to an enormous size, as everyone was trying to understand one another. Some people had resorted to yelling where Hermione had simply enchanted a piece of paper that wrote a transcript of what she was saying. So, there was no need for yelling among her friends they just talked and read what was being said.

They were halfway through discussing the way that Thestrals existed for the people who hadn't seen death. It was obvious that they took in space, but most people wouldn't walk into one if they didn't know it was there.

The hall fell silent when there was a person that entered through the front door. She was a witch of average height and with a black head of hair. Her face was obscured by the table of Hufflepuffs that was sitting between them and the central walkway. Hermione tried to look but her sight was blocked by Cedric who was also looking at the woman that had just entered. Missing her face by a second Hermione could see that she was wearing all black clothing.

Deciding that it would be easier to see who had just walked through the doors she looked towards the teacher's table, gaging the reactions from there. It was a mixed bag, Dumbledore and Slughorn were both delighted to see the person that had entered. Flitwick and McGonnell were less pleased by the late entrance of the person.

Even when the witch reached the podia there was still a painful few seconds that Hermione was left in the dark about who was standing there. It might be the new defence against the dark arts professor. Or it could be the other one that was missing from the table.

It took till she turned to the side that Hermione was able to look at the face of the person that she had been looking at. It was a face that seemed to hold one expression, one of absolute boredom. Nothing more or nothing less was visible on her face.

The person that was standing here was someone she didn't recognize but sure would like to now. From a distance, she looked so beautiful. Like a fallen angel or a demon that was sent to corrupt the innocent. She wasn't sure who she was, but one thing had become clear now, she really wanted to get to know her better.

Dumbledore had not said anything to address the hall, so she assumed that she would hear about it right after the meal would be finished. Turning back to her friends she continued to talk to her friends even if they seemed to be distracted.

"Harry, what did you say again about them avoiding human contact unless knowingly engaging in it?" she asked of Harry, snapping her fingers in his face.

"Ehhh" he started off with, before collecting his thoughts and thinking it over. "yes, there are theories that Thestrals will try to stay out of the way of creatures that haven't had to opportunity to face death on their own terms."

He looked up for a second before continuing. "it is also likely that they just aren't a big fan of touch, so they try to avoid it. But that would be difficult to test as then the person would have to touch them without knowing where they were."

The feast was lavish and filling like always, the house elves had outdone themselves again. Headmaster Dumbledore signalled the end of the meal with standing up and raising his hands. Again, there fell a silence over the welcome feast, this time not out of shock or surprise but out of respect for the old wizard. Lowering them again, he smiled.

"Welcome to Hogwarts I say to those of you that are attending our school for the first time, and those of you that are returning I say welcome back. As you might have noticed, at the beginning of the evening there were still two open spots for teaching faculty members. During the meal, one of the new members was able to join us already, and I'd like to introduce her myself. But first I would like to focus on the other person that will be joining the teaching ranks.

I'd like to ask for a warm welcome to our groundskeeper to his new position of professor of Care of Magical Creatures. He will be replacing Professor Silvanus Kettleburn who has decided to retire after an almost seventy-year long tenure, we here at Hogwarts would absolutely wish him the best in his new endeavours. If all of you now could please give Professor Rubeus Hagrid a warm welcome."

The entire hall erupted in thunderous applause, the entire Gryffindor table jumped to their feet and were making an exited raucous. Hermione had stood among them but had reserved herself to clapping excitedly, the screams of support were done better by the people around her.

Hagrid had stood up and was smiling like a fool, walking over to his new seat closer to the centre of the table. From where she was sitting it was difficult to look for the finer details on the faces of the professors. Slughorn was keeping a diplomatic neutral expression, Minerva and Flitwick seemed to be exited. The others were just kinda in-between them. But one exception was the new witch that would become their defence against the dark arts teacher, she was looking bored into her goblet. Twirling it from side to side and sipping it occasionally.

Dumbledore held his hands up again, seemingly controlling the volume that the students were making. As he lowered them it became increasingly silent, till there could be a needle being dropped and heard.

"Lastly I would like to introduce the new Defence Against the Dark arts professor. She has agreed to teach the subject this one year so let's make it a good one for her." He turned to his side and spoke to her, "would you like to do the introduction yourself?"

The witch nodded and stood up, walking around the table to the little stand that Dumbledore had been talking behind. She retrieved her wand and made a few papers appear out of thin air. The hall was again silent, everyone was hanging on her lips.

If Hermione had to define a femme fatale, it would be a picture of her as the definition. She was refined, had an autocratic look to herself. Seemingly valuing herself so far above the other people that where in the same room as her that she would ignore them.

"I would like to thank Albus for that quick introduction to what I will be doing here for the year. I'm indeed here to teach you a lot to defend yourself against the dark arts, but that is not all I will be doing.

While defence is great in most situations, it is also needed to know what is going to be thrown at you in the outside world. So, for the years that have their owls already know that I will be teaching you all to be adept in handling the dark arts, I will expect every single one of you to be punctual at the start of every lesson. I'm saying that now so that none of you is gonna try to get a free pass during the first lesson.

Other information that could be useful for you people," she pondered for a moment, "I will be addressed as Professor Black, nothing else will be permitted." She said this and curiously looked over to the Slytherin table.

"But I will thank you for your warm welcome." She then turned on her heal a walked back to her seat, again taking the goblet and twirling it from side to side.

Dumbledore took the lead of the clapping that occurred then, it was a wholly different way of how was applauded for Hagrid. It sounded still loud, but the absence of screams of excitement it was hollow.

As it slowly died out the headmaster stood again and prepared to make his final statement this evening.

"Thank you, Professor Black and Professor Hagrid, for taking the positions as teachers of these students. I would also like to remind everyone, new students and old alike that the forbidden forest is like the name might suggest, forbidden. And that the list of forbidden items has expanded again, anyone who might like to check it can go to mister Filches office.

Now though I have to leave you with these last few words: Cardest prestont.  
now off to sleep with you lot." He finished his speech sitting back down.


	3. Who will run the world

"What you make of her?" a girl asked in the common room, the students had taken a seat and were talking the evening over. As usual, there was the same conversation about the new defence against the dark arts professor. Taking guesses about how she would act, whether they would be easy or hard to deal with.

Usually, there wouldn't have been such a clear vision of the new teacher. But Professors Blacks speech and introduction left a very clear view of who she was. It was almost a waste to try to look her up in the book of magical families.

Her family name did bring up some interesting facts, she was a member of one of the more prominent pure-blood families of the last century. As there was no first name, they weren't sure which of the living female blacks she might be, but they quickly came down to a group of three sisters. Narcissa, Bellatrix and Andromeda the only children of Cygnus Black. They were the nieces of Sirius Black the family friend of the potters.

Harry had given all the information that he had but it wasn't exactly a lot. Sirius didn't talk about his family a lot. He had been shunned from the house and his mother had died with anger in her heart. His connections to them were very reserved. Harry remembered one time that his father had hosted Sirius's brother, who was trying to make amends. The evening had gone well for them, making the promise to start talking again. But of extended family, Sirius didn't speak much of.

Narcissa could be ruled out, the book told them that she was married to Lucius Malfoy, Draco's dad. So, leftover was Andromeda, whom life was described to about thirty years prior and Bellatrix who was mentioned by name, but the biography sections were left empty. They hadn't seen that before most of the purebloods took pride in their life and wanted it to be recorded in any way.

"I feel that she will excel in her teaching," Hermione offered the first opinion of the evening. Most of the time she would wait for a first impression in the classroom before she tried to make any assumptions.

"Why would you say that Hermione,' Parvati Patil asked. Curious what had made her say that.

"Well, she got down to business as soon as she could have. Making clear that she wanted to teach a class that would follow her lead. While I haven't been taught by her, I can recognize a professional, and the way that she carried herself in there. It spoke loud and clear, professional."

It was all that she had to say about the matter, as she stood up to leave for her bed in the tower, she looked over the collected student body of Gryffindor. "And I would like to remind all of you that while we had a feast this evening that doesn't mean that there isn't a school day tomorrow. So off to bed with you." she waved over the younger students to their towers.

Seeing them leave through the doors she waited till they were all gone. As soon as only the sixth year and older were still sitting in the common room, she spoke again. "Harry, I trust that you can take the bunch of them to bed when it really becomes too late?" her eyebrow cocked up.

Harry looked over, putting his conversation with Dean on hold ", sure go and rest, you're gonna need it with all the classes you're gonna be taking."

Wishing them goodnight, she walked up the staircase to the fifth floor. It had been the residence of her bed at Hogwarts for six solid years and now it started off its seventh year. Plopping down on the mattress she looked up at the ceiling. It was still slightly enchanted from last year. It had been her dream to put the same charm that had been cast on the ceiling of the great hall on her bed.

Admiring the semi-transparent wood that showed her some of the stars she heard that somebody else had entered the tower room, it couldn't be one of her classmates as they couldn't enter the tower. And if it was one of the girls they would have just gone to bed and not stood still in the entrance.

"Hermione," a familiar voice called out.

"Ginny, what brings you here?" she asked, sitting up in her bed.

"I just had a couple of questions about the school year, and I didn't think of them before now…" she trailed off, holding her arm in front of herself.

"What's going on Ginny?" Parvati asked, waking past her to get to the bed at the far side of the room.

As she stood there Ginny seemed to have recollected herself. A slight shift in her stance revealed to Hermione that the youngest Weasley was ready.

"What am I gonna see this year in Defence against the dark arts?" she asked Hermione.

Slightly taken aback by the question, she looked around, her eyes connecting with those of Parvati.

"Ginny," she started, "You'll see soon enough, every professor has their own planning and kinda do their own thing." Parvati could see that this wasn't exactly calming the girl down. "But almost all of them look over the past couple of years and then decide what they are gonna teach you."

"Yes," Hermione shimmed back in, "I know that when you are done with the school your dream is to become and auror." Ginny scoffed at that statement, "well first a pro-Quidditch player, but you've been planning the auror stuff for ages now."

"I know, but…" she started before Parvati interrupted her.

"Ginny take it from me, they'll teach you all you need to know for your NEWTS in your seventh year. There has been no student that failed the Defence against the dark arts classed because they had a myriad of teachers."

"As Parvati is saying, don't worry too much." Hermione say her calming down, now having released her arm and having it swinging next to her. "If you ever need some extra tutorage you know where to find me."

"Yes, I do indeed," Ginny said with a smile that now rested on her face, "Thank you Hermione and Parvati. You where both of great help."

"No problem kid," Parvati yelled after her as Ginny left for her own room.

Waking up early that morning had never really been her forte, but as with all things that didn't happen out of love, she did it because it was right. Getting up at seven was one of those things. She didn't exactly like it but there was the plus that when she'd arrive at the great hall, there would be almost no one there. She could start her day in peace, and quietly wake up.

Arriving there the sun had already risen over the horizon and was shining gloriously through the windows. An orange glow shone over the hall, the dark wooden tables where now of a more lighter tone. She could almost grab the glow that was laying on top of the tables. Her had trailed over the Hufflepuff table for a moment before she reached her favourite place to sit during her breakfast.

It was one that was always just far enough that new people wouldn't bother walking all the way down to her and the fireplace that was across form her would provide some heat during the colder months. She had just taken a seat when she looked over to the teachers table.

Sitting there she saw that Hagrid was enjoying his breakfast quietly, as the groundskeeper and now also professor his working day was one of a long breath. There had been days that she had helped him out with some magic that he couldn't preform himself and then they had started their day around five in the morning. So, this breakfast was actually his second meal of the day.

A bit further along she saw that McGonagall had also decided to start her day early, probably to prepare some stuff for the first-year students. As the head of the Gryffindor house, she was responsible for the timetables of all the students. Hermione would walk up to her after she had finished her breakfast to retrieve hers and one of all her friends, so she could organize them already. It would save her time in the end.

Looking further along she saw the new professor sitting alone, seemingly also having taken a spot that was normally for staff. Leaving her own teachers chair to be empty. 'she might just not be that much of a morning person to be in the middle of attention.' She thought. Looking at her ones over she noticed that there was only one cup in front of the witch.

Hermione looked back to where she was sitting, her breakfast was good as always. The house elves that worked in the kitchen were the perfect little chefs. They could make you anything you wanted to eat so that everyone was feeling at home. She'd also had retrieved a copy of the daily prophet. Turning it over to look at the front page she read that there were talks about a concurrent in the backing world.

Noosing trough the paper she just got what she had predicted, the same old stories that had crept into the news like always. There was a cat missing, some Purebloods had been committing fraud on a massive scale and there was some advertisement for the twins joke shop. They had gotten some investment form the potters, they had been amused by the idea and had signed on to help them out.

The time went by slowly, so Hermione basked in the silence that would be fleeing these walls till tomorrow morning. Even now she could feel the thousands of feet coming down and upstairs closing in on the great hall. There was a small tremor to be felt as she stood up. The first of the other students had arrived, mostly second years who knew their way round the castle already.

She approached the teachers table and knocked in front of McGonnell, she looked up from her own breakfast and some of the time tables that where giving her some troubles. She recognized her within an instant.

"Morning miss Granger, you are here to collect your timetable?" she asked politely putting the piece of toast that she was eating down on her plate.

"If you wouldn't mind," Hermione answered standing there.

Mcgonnagle rummaged through the stack and eventually pulled out a set of timetables. "Here, I trust that these will find their rightful owners." She looked her in the eyes when she said that.

"They'll all be delivered to those that need them." She said.

"So, all of them," She heard her say under her breath. But being respectful she decided to decline the notion that she might have heard it.

Saying goodbye to her, she gave a wave to Hagrid before putting herself back in her spot. She spread the tables out and looked at where everyone needed to be during the weeks. It seemed that one's again Ron and Harry would be in the same classes for the time being, there was a slight difference where Harry was taking advanced potioneering where Ronald was taking advanced care of magical creatures.

She herself was not as filled as she had feared she might have been but spending six years trying to complete as much school as she could there had been a couple of classes that she didn't have to take anymore, Arithmancy and muggle studies she had completed last year. Charms, potions and transmutations where also on the way out, she was almost halfway finished with each of those so at the moment her workload was lighter than those of her friends.

Taking a quick look at Nevil, she saw that his love for nature and magical plants had stood out well. He had dropped potions and was spending most of his time in the greenhouses between the large number of plants. Professor Sprout would be happy to have some extra help, last year there had been some experiments with plant acceleration that had been used on the sleeping draughts.

She also took a look when her first period with the new defence against the dark arts professor would be. Looking it over it seemed that Ginny would have her first Thursday at noon and that she, Harry and Ron would have her Friday morning. 'So, we have to wait a week before getting to see your true feathers,' She murmured to herself, looking over to where the professor had sat moments before. Now finding the place empty, only a cup remained as a silent witness of what had occurred there.

"Guys could you all just shut up for a moment," she tried to yell over the group that was standing in front of her. It was still the first day at Hogwarts that lessons where actually happening. So, Hermione was trying to organize them to where they were supposed to go.

"Everyone shut up!" Harry eventually yelled, grabbing everyone's attention. "Could we all just listen to Hermione for a moment?" he then waved her arm over to where she was standing.

"Thank you harry, as I was saying. First of all, Ginny, you need to get to the divination tower about three minutes ago." As she said that she pushed the now colour labelled timetable and send her off to the divination tower.

"Now Neville you have a free period but then you are expected to be at Hagrid's hut for the care of magical creatures." She gave him the table.

"Now, Harry, Ron you need to get your ass to charms or Flitwick will have your wands. His lesson starts in about fifth-teen minutes, but his classroom is on the other side of the school so hurry off" she pushed the timetables in their hands. "Go go go." She said motioning them to the entrance of the great hall.

She watched Ginny leave slowly, convinced that the first lesson in divination would predict her being late. Or at least that would be what she would claim to get out of trouble. Trelawney was gifted by the sight, but the time between prophesies had been large lately. Not even all of her predictions had come true.

Hermione was convinced that she was actually a hack but that didn't really bother her. She'd dropped it during her third year, focusing more on finding patterns in magical numbers. And while Arithmancy had yet to yield any real results in the predicting the future part, she liked basing her life more on fact than fiction.

"Hermione?" Neville said, taking a big gulp from his morning coffee. "Where are you going to go?"

It was an honest question. She hadn't told anyone that her timetable was mostly clear. "Well, Neville I'm gonna go to the Library. I've got some work that I need to do before my year really starts."

"really Hermione, on your first day before the first period you are already going to the library?" Nevil asked.

"Yes, you can never work too much upfront. If all goes well, I'll have all of it finished around November." She said with the air of someone preparing to finish it all already. There was an immense weigh that had been put on her shoulders, she didn't mind it as it was her own doing, but she was looking forward to it being over.

The library was empty as usual during the first period. She had noticed that people weren't that motivated to get there early on, so she had claimed the space as her personal hideaway. The towering stuffy shelves of books lined the walls. She could spend an entirety here and not even read a tenth of the books that were present in the building. She had tried of course and had even early on made a plan to read as much as she could but had to conceded that even going at a breakneck speed, she would need around sixty-five years to read them all.

Coming closer to her table, one that overlooked the lake in the distance, she plopped herself down there. While she had told Neville that she was going to do some schoolwork preparations she actually was going to do some relaxing reading. She had gotten a compendium of Lovecraft's works and had been reading trough them. If she wasn't absolutely sure she would have pegged that man for a wizard.

His stories where eerie on the fact that their descriptions of the ancient evils she could pick out the effects that dementors could have on muggles. This made her wonder if the American ministry of magic was keeping them away from populated areas as all the governments had agreed to during the eighteen twenty-nine accords of Bruges.

Placing all her focus on the book she was lost in reading till the slight vibration of her wand pulled her out of it again. As she needed to be places soon, she had put a delayed vibration charm on her wand. It was something she had seen muggle message boxes do when they had an alarm of received a message. It was a practical idea that had kept her busy for a few days, figuring out how to cast delayed spells and then how to do it reliably was the hard part. She was still breaking her head how to send instant messages over a magical channel. But that wasn't what concerned her now. Now she just had to get up and walk over to transmutations.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class miss granger," madam Prince asked her. Making Hermione jump from the sudden noise that was made by the librarian that has seen her sitting there.

"Madam Prince," Hermione grabbed her book and calmed her breathing down, "My first class is only happening just in the second period for me." She explained. "And I should be going now. Have a good day madam Prince."

"These children are funny." She heard her say when she left the library.


	4. No from her

"But professor…"

"Absolutely not. Miss Granger while I usually praise students for doing their research in the widest of fields, I can't permit you to do it on a subject so dark, so depraved." McGonagle told her Bluntly. She had sat back in her chair over the time that Hermione tried to explain what she would like to do her research project.

This had not been unexpected to the young witch, she had already predicted that there would have been a good chance that she would be told no.

What had surprised her was the hard-line position that she had taken on the subject. While it was true that the magic, she wanted to research was deeply dark and, in more ways, than one depraved. It was still just that, magic.

"Professor would you at least consider it?" she asked as her last try, she had really wanted to get her as her supervisor. In her eyes, McGonagle was by far the smartest witch that roamed these walls. In the seven years that she had spent here at Hogwarts, the number of times that she had needed to defer to somebody else for an answer to a question was still countable on her fingers.

"Hermione," Both of them looked up at the use of her first name, "I would strongly advise you to just drop the subject and chose anything else." It was a request, but the power of her words was not yet at the headmaster's level. So that was all it would stay at, a request.

Hermione picked up her books and excused her out of the classroom. Not wanting to create more conflict between her and her favourite teacher. She closed the door silently but quickly. Maybe even too quick as she didn't catch the final words her professor said.

"I hope that she knows what she is doing." Was uttered to an empty classroom, over the stack of papers she had been grading.

"Hey Ginny," Harry greeted his girlfriend as she approached the few places at the table in the great hall that they were occupying.

Ron had rushed from the final class He had with Harry and Hermione to grab a few seats together. It was not unheard of the first years to spread out so that no one really could sit together in a group. And as Hermione had pointed out using your prefect badge to make them move was a bit tyrannical.

So now, Ron rushed out of the classroom to try and grab about eight seats so everyone that wanted to sit with them could. Most of the time it was just Her, Ron, Harry, Neville and Ginny. Occasionally Dean and Thomas would join as well, Luna had been known to pop up as well, seemingly lost from her own table but perfectly content to join them along the way.

This time though Ron had been able to take the head of the table and had held space for most of the seventh year of Gryffindor. Harry had held onto space for Ginny, where she slipped in as soon as she got to space.

"How are you doing?" Harry asked the normally so talkative girl. Ginny was uncharacteristically quiet, normally she would have so much to say to everyone and everything. Now though she was looking down at the food and was kinda staring out in front of her.

"Ginny everything alright?" Hermione asked the girl, curious about the state she was now in. she leaned over and took one of her hands in her own. This seemed to pull her back to reality.

Ginny's eyes flicked up and for a moment there was a moment of clarity in her eyes before they went trouble again.

"That's curious," she muttered as she pulled her wand up and quickly scanned Ginny. When her detection spell was reflected, she got even more intrigued.

"Ginny," she asked putting her wand away, "what happened the last lesson period?"

Ginny looked up again and opened her mouth, before reconsidering it. And looking down ones more.

"Bloody hell what's going on?" Ron asked when he finally noticed his sister acting all strange like.

"Ron not now, I'm trying to figure that out." She said shushing her friend. She was now thinking, making a list of spells that might have been cast on her friend. There was a somewhat long list of spells to choose from, so going after each of them one by one would be inefficient.

She pulled out a piece of parchment and started writing the spells down. When she had noted them all down, she wrote the length of the duration it would last. After a bit, she had a list of spells and incantations that were ordered by the length of their duration. Looking over them from short to long, she immediately scrapped the first few that should have passed during the time they had been sitting there.

During all of this Ginny had done little more than put a piece of toast and was now munching on it. While she might not be communicating it was reassuring that she was taking care of basic needs like eating and drinking. This most likely pointed out that this spell was not done with malcontent in mind.

"Ginny, I'm gonna be casting some spells on you to try and remove the spell." She waited for a second to see if Ginny would give any indication about understanding what was being said. When she didn't say anything back to her, Hermione proceeded to try and dispel a number of the longer lasting incantations.

This did nothing, but it made the list considerably shorter. Now there were only about three more spells left. One of them was considerably more difficult than the others. 'let's keep that one for last,' she thought, 'even though I assume that that will be the one.'

After about ten or so minutes she had correctly gotten the spell that had been cast on Ginny Weasley. Even though she had kind of brute forced it out of the incantation. Mumbling the counter incantation, Hermione successfully dispelled it and she saw Ginny's eyes clear up.

"Where am I?" Ginny asked when she came too again.

"You're in the great hall, eating your dinner," Harry told her, wrapping an arm around her. Ginny leaned into it and looked around herself.

"How did I get here?" she asked looking at the entrance, "I was just sitting in the Defence against the Dark arts classroom and I remember, I at least think I remember Professor Black enter the room." She told the table.

"That sounds like someone hit you with an obliviate spell Ginny," Nevil said. Looking over to the teacher's table they all could see her sitting there. Again, not eating much more than the fruit that was put out as a healthy dessert and a goblet that held wine she knew from experience.

Not that Professor Black noticed any of the students that were currently looking at her. She was just quietly eating an apple and sipping from her goblet from time to time.

"Hermione you can't just try to learn all of this year's Defence against the dark arts lessons in one evening," she heard Harry say when he came down the stairway for the second time that evening. He'd been there when twelve had rolled around to give her a heads-up. It wouldn't have been the first time that she'd pull an all-nighter.

This was, however, the second time that he'd had to come down, which mend that he had already slept for a bit and was now coming down to check no one was still down here. He wasn't all that surprised seeing her there, as was she not surprised to get found there. It was truly the witching hour.

"I know Harry, but I want to be prepared. You saw what happened to Ginny earlier. We can't be prepared enough." She said flipping through her notes and a big old book that was propped open before the fire that had simmered down a bit. At the beginning of the night, it had been roaring like a fierce lion, but now it was just kinda purring like a small kitten.

"Hermione I must tell you, for your own best will that you should go to sleep. You will be less prepared to face that class if you don't." He said making a valiant effort to start clearing her space and pulling her up to her bedroom.

Hermione protested only in words and with some magic, she cleared her space and magically shrunk them till they fit in a small satchel that was attached to her side. She might not have wanted to go to sleep but it was becoming clear each step that was taken toward her bed that she was tired beyond belief.

Hearing Harry close the door closed again she let herself fall back onto the soft mattress and looked up. She had fixed the charm and now she had a clear view of the sky above. There was a falling star passing by, so she made a wish upon the stars. One that would make no difference as she knew that a piece of rock had little influence over the way things happen on earth.

But she did it because at this point everything could help. She might be the brightest witch of her age, that didn't mean that there weren't things that scared her. The unknown was one of the irrational fears she had and not knowing what to expect tomorrow morning wasn't helping much.

Turning on her side she slowly let sleep get to her. "I just hope she's nice." She whispered out before falling into the deep void of sleep.

That night she would sleep well, not a second of her dream was remembered. It belonged to the void as much as it did to her. only one detail would stand out tomorrow. As she would wake up Hermione would have the strangest craving for some apples.

"Miss Granger!" a loud voice called out to her.

Hermione jumped in her chair and made a scan for her surroundings. The great hall, breakfast. That was good, she hadn't missed any lessons yet. Looking back over to the source of the voice she saw Mcgonnagle standing there. her black teacher's robe already adorned.

"Miss Granger, could you please focus." It sounded like she had been calling her name for a while now, Harry had been right saying that she should have gone to sleep a couple of hours before.

"Uhm, what?" she asked. Not having caught what was being asked of her.

"Miss Granger I was here to tell you that I considered the offer, but I have to refuse. I don't want myself associated whit that kind of magic. I'm sure that you will understand me there" she said in a cryptic way to not allude to whatever she had chosen as her research subject to the rest of the table.

"That's alright professor," she answered, taking a cup of coffee that had been sitting out there for her. "I'll just have to find someone else to supervise me then."

"I wish you the best of luck with that miss Granger." She looked at the table over, all of whom were staring at the both of them. They had been listening to the entire conversation but had not grasped what they were talking about.

"Aren't all of you supposed to be going to your classes right now?" Mcgonnagle asked the table before making her way out of the hall to her own classroom

The hallway before the Defence against the dark arts classroom was filled to the brim. Unlike past years where the teachers had left it open, so they could get themselves ready and settled before the lesson happened.

As they approached Hermione saw that Cedrick Diggory was trying to charm the door open. Just when he cast the Alohomora spell there was a bright flash that jumped form the door, striking him square in the chest.

"Blimey!" She heard Ron exclaim as it happened, his reaction was not unproportional to what was happening. Cedrick was slowly losing colour and slowing down. Everyone was standing still in shock, watching him slowly stiffen.

The door slammed open and a yellow flash came hurtling out of it.

"Who, in Merlin's NAME IS TRYING TO BREAK INTO MY CLASSROOM."


	5. Professor Black

The classroom was mouse silent, a needle could be heard if it had fallen in that room. Professor Black had ordered them inside and had gone to deliver Cedrick to Madam Pomfrey. She had left them with one instruction. "Stay silent and don't move." She'd told them.

Hermione had sat next to Harry and Ron on the other side of the aisle. She had been mulling over how Professor Black had handled the situation. In all fairness, her door had been cursed and had actively hurt a student.

But on the other hand, she had quickly and efficiently handled the situation. Cedrick had been taken to the hospital wing and she had seemed calm and collected about the situation.

The silence lasted longer, she could hear the slow ticking of a mechanical clock that had been put behind them. Listening to it she slowly started to notice that it wasn't actually ticking on a regular interval. It seemed that there was a slight offset, somewhere shorter and then they would grow longer again.

She also noticed that the people surrounding her, and herself included leaned forward when it sped up. While they all leaned back a bit when it slowed down again. It was strange sight seeing the whole class moving in some kind of motion to the front and to the back. She could have described it as a peaceful exercise, wobbling from side to side.

The door creaked open behind them, but not a single person had the backbone to turn around to see who was there. they just straightened their postures and waited. Believing that the person that entered must eventually come to the front of the room. There was a somewhat creepy atmosphere hanging in there now.

Hermione felt more than ones that something or someone was starting at the back of her neck. As it was really quiet there, she heard the light taps on the floor as someone was moving around the back of the classroom.

Out of nowhere, the ticking stopped, leaving the majority of students in their respective motions. Slowly moving closer to the table of their desk or slowly tipping the seat they were sitting on. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Ron had almost laid himself flat on the table. Waiting patiently for the change in rhythm to right himself ones again.

"Bang," somebody had fallen out of their chair, tipping themselves so far back that they couldn't keep themselves stable no longer.

Everyone turned around in their chair and tried to catch a look of who had fallen out of their chair. As Hermione glanced over, she took a quick scan of the back of the classroom. There was no professor there, there was just the empty space at the back of the room. The small window that gave access to the clocks inner workings stood open and a single cogwheel had been taken out of it. she could see it sitting on the lip of the case.

'Where did she go?' she asked herself, taking note of the fallen student, one Adrian MacNair that was in Hufflepuff. She had rarely interacted with him. He seemed to be a simple lad, respectful but a bit dim-witted. At least that had been her impression about four years ago, he had made it to Newt level defence against the dark arts classes, so dim-witted he couldn't be anymore.

The girl that had been sitting next to him had pulled him up was much more memorable. She had been one of the girls that Hermione had tutored during her fifth year. She had been having troubles with transmutation.

"Could anyone of you explain what just happened?" a voice called out from the front of the room. It carried an air of importance that had been present in her yelling earlier that hour.

Again, everyone's head snapped to the front of the classroom. There she stood, Professor Black, dressed in an impeccable black dress that seemed to contain a corset. One that Hermione thought she'd seen prototypes of in the national history museum of fashion the last time she had had time to visit muggle London.

"Well," the witch demanded. Taking a seat in behind her desk at the front of the classroom. As Hermione extended her hand to answer the question there was some kind of pull coming from those eyes, having learned to expect the unexpected by Professor Alistair. So, she kept her eyes focused on a piece of wall that was right behind the professor.

"Yes, miss…?" Professor Black said pointing her out, her voice was still so good. Hermione could imagine listening to it for the longest time.

"Granger, professor, and what has just happened was that all of us were distracted by the ticking at the back of the room. After we noticed it, we all just kinda followed along to the speed of the ticks. Slowly moving in motion with it.

But when it was stopped by someone. And we all just kinda kept going in the various ways that we were moving. Till eventually one of us moved too far and snapped everyone out of the mindset." She explained.

Professor Black evaluated the answer that she had given. Taking a pause to really think about it, she was twirling her wand in her hand slowly. Like a cat she placed it down, flat on the desk. Which was a challenge as her wand was curved in a particular place.

"Correct miss Granger," she said praising her, "Could anyone else tell me what could have been done to prevent this?" Professor Black asked the other students.

Overall the lesson went by without another hitch. Cedrick was recovering like normal. The curse that had been put on the door was just a short-lived petrification spell. Nothing too major that couldn't be fixed with a potion and a night's rest.

By all standards that a teacher would have, she wasn't the worst they had had. Thinking it over was uncertain if any of the other professors had started their year off with a practical lesson. Most of them had just kinda gone around the room learning each of their names and making a bit of small talk to them.

Professor Black hadn't done any of those things. She had barely gotten to know her students. Hermione was fairly certain that she knew her name but that wasn't a good representation of the whole class group. If she had to count the people on her hands that had answered questions during her lessons, she would only have needed to use one hand.

She had answered the majority of questions, followed by Harry. He had given it a try to answer the questions. They might not have been right all the time, but he tried. Which was seen by professor Black, she had refrained from calling his answers stupid when she noticed that they were pretty much the only people answering her question. So, she went to explain what she was asking more clearly and then would ask her the question again, so she could answer it perfectly.

It seemed that while she was a teacher, she wasn't that much of a fan actually doing the teacher part of her job. She seemed to prefer just asking the hard questions and then referring to Hermione or to the textbook that they had gotten halfway through the hour. When she had deemed it alright for them to look up the stuff they needed to know about.

Hermione had taken a backseat during most of the class and was heading towards the end of the volume when Professor Black had called her out.

"Granger, what are you doing reading the chapters on the most depraved of magic?" she had asked her, looking over her shoulder as she had been doing rounds.

"I have finished with the book already," she had confessed, "I'm reading these passages to think over some of the ideas I've had about my research paper."

"Miss Granger I would appreciate it if you followed the lesson inside of my classroom, I don't particularly care what you do in your free time with the book. But for now, we follow the chapter I laid out to be studied in class." She stared her in the eyes again. "Do we understand each other?" she then asked her.

The remainder of the lesson she had followed along with the others. Answering the various questions that were asked of her by Professor Black.

Toward the end, she had given them the homework to write a twelve-inch analysis of their favourite curse. Explaining why, and a short history lesson about the way it was invented. And an adept description of how it worked.

They had gotten to the next lesson to complete it, so she had placed it to the side for the moment. She would most likely be making it during the weekend along with an essay for potions. It was lining up to be a calm end of the week for her. there was no lesson anymore that separated her from the weekend.

So, while the boys were hurrying along to their next lessons she took her time calmly eating her lunch and read another short excerpt from Howard Phillips Lovecraft. It still didn't make much sense to her that this man that was accurately describing the effects of invisible creatures for muggles was not a wizard in any way.

She was again deep into her book that she hadn't noticed one of the house elves that was standing next to her. Only on her third try of catching her attention with a cough, did she finally look down to it.

"Miss. We've got a message from the noble lady." She said as she handed a piece of parchment.

She took it and the house elf just popped out of existence. 'It was still a strange sight,' she thought, opening the piece of parchment.

'Miss Granger, you said you had an idea for your research paper. I must say that intrigued me, so please deliver this piece of parchment back to me with the subject written on it. I might be able to enlighten your ignorant brain.'

"That's a bit presumptuous," she whispered under her breath. But she did appreciate the offer of help that was being extended to her.

She took the parchment and wrote on it in nice readable letters the subject of her study. Calling out for an elf she put it in his hand and told him to deliver it to Professor Black as soon as possible.

She saw him walking away and returned back to the food she was eating. Looking back on her day she couldn't complain. It had been a fun lesson of defence against the dark arts. Spare actually using their wands it might have even been the most informative one yet. But she shouldn't be putting so final statements on the lesson. There was still an entire year of them left. So, there was plenty of time left to improve upon the ideal that had been put forth today.

"So, what are you thinking about Hermione?" Ginny asked her that evening in the common room. Their day had ended and now they were chilling in the tower. Watching the fire and looking over to where Ron was demolishing the ever-living shit out of Harry's bishops.

"Come on Ron, you could have let that pawn live for a bit longer," Harry exclaimed when it was thrown off the board with a right hit to the side. It shattered on impact, creating some rubble that he would have to clean off whenever they finished the game. She saw him stare at it for a second.

"Nothing much to be honest Ginny." She answered in a half trued, it was true that she wasn't doing a lot of intensive thinking. She was just kinda daydreaming till moments before Ginny had interrupted it. Her thoughts had lifted the chess game up and replaced the pieces with some of the people they had known. Giving each of them the appropriated piece to represent themselves.

On the white side, Harry and Ron had been represented as the two pawns that stood before the knights. She had placed Ginny on one of the horses as a knight, with Luna next to her as a bishop. The towers at the end had been the twins, as they were identical, tall and quick on their feet if not a bit straight thinking from time to time.

She had placed herself in the space of the queen, arguing that skills would be good enough to support the other pieces. She also was flexible enough to get to every problem in no time at all. So, queen for herself. There was still a king, knight and bishop left on the white side left to be filled by other people.

The black side had been rather untouched, the only piece that she had been confident to replace was that of the black queen. In her minds view of the board, Professor Black was standing proud and regal on the space. Head held high, an air of indifference about her.

The other black pieces where blank but that didn't really bother Hermione. She was sure that all the pieces that were replaced had been done so in the right way. The white side was maybe a bit more represented. But that was mainly because she had gotten a bit distracted imagining Professor Black standing there, slowly shifting her weight from feet to feet. She had been snarling to the pieces on the other side, even pulling out her crooked wand and threatening them with it.

She smiled thinking about it till she focused back onto Ginny's face. It was displaying a mixture of emotions, confusing being the most prevalent. "Hmm, could you repeat that?" she asked, not knowing if Ginny had said something. But it had become a handy way of just kinda phasing out of it and then re-joining the conversation.

"I said that I would be surprised to learn that Hermione Granger was thinking about nothing. But I was proven right almost instantly, as you stared out into the aether. What's going on in there?" she asked.

Hermione thought it over, not sure how much she was willing to reveal to her friend. "Well…" she started, not having planned where she was going with it. "You know the chess game the guys are playing?" she said then.

"I do, they are still doing it after all," She said back to her motioning at the game that was happening behind the sofa Ginny was laying on.

"yes. Well when they started playing it, I was thinking about who might be a knight out of the people that are here now." She said.

"Ever figured that out?" she asked.

"Yeah, you where most fit for that position of the knight. You are strong, quick on your feet and adaptable." She told her.

Ginny pondered over the statement and then eventually nodded her head. "That sounds like me." She smiled about it for a second before focusing on the fire.

"You filled any of the other positions?" Ginny asked her.

"Yeah, Luna's a Bishop, the twins are the rooks, those two," she motioned over to Harry and Ron, "are pawns, and I thought that I would be a good fit for a queen myself." She said only revealing the white side of the board. 'please don't ask about the other side,' She thought hard. And it became true, Ginny didn't ask about that.

They both stayed silent for a moment as they watched the fire consume the wood that was placed in the fireplace. It was now just slowly moving along the wood. Trying to find the places that were still uncharred to burn a bit more.

"Did you ever figure out who put that spell on you?" Hermione asked, curious if her idea was gonna pan out right.

"Now you say it," Ginny said propping herself up on her seat, the sleepiness suddenly went from her face, "we never did. Everyone from the sixth year that had that lesson of defence against the dark arts says the same thing; a great lesson, can't remember the details though." She said frustrated.

"Have you tried to ask Professor Black about it?" she asked.

"I did try that, but I didn't get far. It was like she just repelled me away. It was like she had an anti-wizard or witch charm cast on herself. When I got close to her, I just got distracted and walked past her." she explained.

'An Anti-wizard or witch charm?' she wondered, 'that must have taken some time to perfect. And placing it on a living person was even more impressive.' Hermione though, everything she managed to learn about the witch was more and more impressive.

"Are you sure that that was it?" she asked her.

"Yes, Hermione I'm sure," Ginny answered, sounding a bit ticked off. "I don't get why you don't believe me. If we have anti-muggle charms why wouldn't there one for the magical folk?"

"It's not that I don't trust you, Ginny, it is just that it is extremely difficult to cast a spell like that on a living person. Some would even call it impossible." She said impressed.

"Hmm," Ginny pondered it over, "well whatever she did, she did it well. No one can approach her, and she has a peaceful world that she can live in."

'Yeah she has that,' Hermione thought back to the silent classroom earlier, 'it had been peaceful alright.'


	6. A day in the Black

It was a late evening; the night had fallen a few hours before and she was now sipping on the end of her bottle of red wine. She was now reading over the lesson plan that she had submitted to Dumbledore last week. Right at the deadline, she had delivered it to his desk. He hadn't been surprised by the late delivery.

"Thank you, Bella. I'll review it as soon as I can. Then I'll let you know if I have approved it." He said barely looking up form a muggle magazine.

She had spent about five seconds looking at the cover before she gave up. It was filled with still pictures and there where yellow letters all over the page. She swore that it was talking about a 'Princess that had an accident.' That didn't really interest her, so she started to walk away from him as he called her.

"Bellatrix?" he asked.

Turning on her heels she turned around back to him, "Yes Albus, what do you what?"

"Why are you here?" Albus Dumbledore asked her.

"I, I don't understand the question." She told him.

"Why are you here, at this school, teaching the children of the future." He said.

"…I just got the letter and applied because it was a change of scenery. I was stuck in my previous job for a little too long and it was like there was a coincidence that was sent to me by Merlin." She said recounting, what had happened over the course of her summer.

Albus took that in and pondered over it. "It is good to see that you've changed since your time at this school." He told her.

"Albus," she said sweetly, "I very much doubt that I've changed that much. My believes are still very much in place."

"So, you're still on about the superiority of…"

"Of purebloods, yes I do. We're the pinnacle of the magical world. All of the advances in the magical world have been done by or under the supervision of the Noble purebloods that are the backbone of our world." She said taking pride in her words.

"You know that you will have to teach those other students too, right?" Albus asked her?

"I know, but I've got a simple solution to that problem. I'll just never learn them to personally, just last names from them and they will only get my last name. So, there will be no chance that we will ever become friends, and there will be no problem for me to teach the mud-bloods, the blood traitors, the half- and purebloods." She told him, proud of her own plan.

It would defiantly work, she would have an easy job for a year and no one would bother her during the year. There would also be no students asking her questions during the hours she would be spending outside of her classroom.

Albus regarded her for a moment more before dismissing her. "Goodnight Professor Black." He said.

"Night Albus." She told him waving her hand over her shoulder when she left through the office door.

'That had been a fun moment,' as she thought back to it. It had been true that she had taken precautions to limit her interactions with the student body. She had placed an anti-wizard and witches' charm on her clothing and she had found it to be very handy. There had been many students that tried to approach her, but all of them got distracted along the way. The one downside that she had found was that the students of age weren't affected by the spell.

That wasn't a big problem at the moment only a small amount of the student body was of age, but toward the end of the year, she would have to find a way to repel even those students. But that would be a problem for later.

For now, she would be enjoying her time in peace and might even spend some time helping supervise that Granger girl, where she had been reading was some interesting part of the book. She wondered for a moment what the subject of her study would be.

Well, she could find out at any moment; the girl had written it on the back of the piece of parchment that had been delivering back to her by the house elf that Albus so gracefully had loaned her. It was a fine servant, noting in comparisons to the ones that were kept at the black family manor. But for now, it would do.

She sipped the last of the wine out of her glass and took the bottled in her hand. Twirling it around she saw that there was barely any wine left. It sloshed around the bottom until she placed it down on the side table. Looking at the candle clock she noticed that it had gone over to the next day already.

"We should be cleaning up here then, she spoke to the empty room." Standing up she waited for a second if there was any nausea coming up, as there was nothing happening to her balance, she took the brave step forward and deposited the book next to the candle on the mantle of her fireplace.

"Prentes." She called out, immediately her house elf popped into existence before her.

"Lady Black called," it said, bowing its head in recognition of her superiority.

"Clean this room and wake me tomorrow no time earlier than ten." She ordered the house elf.

The elf nodded and pooped back out of existence, waiting for her to go to sleep before starting his duties.

Darkness surrounded her, a smoky atmosphere was on the edge of her personal space. If she reached out, she might be able to touch it but for now, there was no need for her.

This dream was recurring, it had been a nightmare for the longest while but now. Now it was just a dream. She would be standing there for a while and then the smoke would dissipate. She would see the empty room and then there would be the feeling that there was something was looking at the back of her head. She had seen it a thousand times.

"Can we move this along?" she asked the smoke, it had proven to speed the entire thing up when she acknowledged the fact that she was dreaming. This time though it was not proven to work. the smoke stayed there.

For the first time she had the feeling that she should touch it, 'but that would be giving in,' she thought. It wasn't the Black family thing to do. She was not gonna give in to the feeling a dream was making her have.

No.

She was going to stand there waiting for the smoke to retreat. She was not going to move a muscle and she was absolutely not going to touch the smoke.

"…"

It had been a few moments since she had carved that promise into stone and now it was looking more and more like a draft of a written agreement. Her will was keeping her from reaching out. As much as her curiosity was trying to get her to touch it.

"You will not be touched!" she yelled out.

Nothing responded, as was expected. She was standing in an empty room after all. The smoke was twirling round and round at a slower and slower speed.

'I must resist touching.' She thought to keep herself to be standing completely still, her arms locked to her side.

"Bellatrix?" a voice called out from the side of her. It startled her, there had never been different people in this dream. That was curious, it was something new in the age-old tale that she had to suffer through.

Could she look over, would that be giving in to the dream world? Or would it be fine because this is a new thing? A new part of the dream that she hadn't been introduced to.

Looking over to the side, concluding that it wasn't the worst thing in the world to see what was happening. It surprised her, the person that was calling out for her name was no other than her own student.

"Miss Granger what are you doing here?" she asked the figure that was standing right on the edge of the shadow.

"The fuck are you doing here!" Bellatrix yelled out, sitting up straight in her bed. Throwing the duvet from herself, launching it across the room.

There was a small squeak heard when she noticed that she had just missed her House-elf with the blanket. It was frozen in place, looking up at her. Waiting for any other exclamations before it was gonna move again.

"What are you looking at?" she yelled again, still half asleep. Her grip on reality wasn't as firm as she had hoped that morning. She had had the strangest dream before waking up.

A student of her had invaded the peaceful time of her sleep. It had also been that Granger girl. Her mind had apparently gotten itself an obsession that she didn't share.

She apricated the way that the girl was smarter than most of the other people in the student body. Might even be smarter than a few members of the faculty she had to admit.

Even after not having looked at the student records from the last couple of years she had caught on that Granger was a smart one. She was apparently on her way to break a few school records that had stood for the longest time.

From what she had heard even Dumbledore was secretly cheering her on to break his old records. He had set an almost flawless record during his NEWTS. It was almost miraculous that she was coming close to his scores, but from what she had heard in the teacher's room they had all the faith in her.

She herself had been a bit out of her at the start, not wanting to mingle with her. She had seen a myriad of students like her she had thought, her time in Hogwarts had been filled with herself with studying for about the first five years that she had spent at the school. Trying to prove that the Black family name was still connected to the greatness of the past.

"Anything a Black puts their mind to, they will succeed in it." Her father had told her on her sixth birthday. It had been from that moment onwards that she had been taught in the dark arts at home. Her sister Andromeda would join her two years later and then they had started duelling between the two of them.

Her dad had always, laid as much importance on that saying as he did about the house motto. The two were particularly connected in his mind and he would press that onto his daughters.

The number of times that she had been told to be the best in the year. To be better than last year. It had gotten to her head and then after five continues years she had let go. Still, she was excelling in her classes but now it was more relaxed. Now she had more her time to spend on relaxing, living her life and exploring where she had stood in the world.

The first weekend at Hogwarts was great for Hermione. She had been able to sleep in for a bit, waking up around nine. She had been able to catch the tail end of the breakfast. Sitting with the few other students that were early risers of the school.

She had been sitting there half working on her homework, as she had taken her book of ancient and dark spells with her. It had been shrunk down and spend most of its time in a satchel. There it was carried with a bunch of other tomes and books she liked to carry on her person.

As she was looking over the index her finger stopped a couple of times, some of the minor curses caught her attention. Anchoring a person to the world preventing them from moving, physically and in the form of an apparition. It caused people to splice on purpose. It was a particularly aggressive spell that had been outlawed since its inception. Only the most experienced Aurors were allowed to use it on only the most dangerous of criminals. Reading about the synopsis she wasn't sure if she liked it enough to make an essay about it though.

She was again drawn to the list of spells when someone took a seat across the table from her. looking at it there was little that really captured her interest. If she wanted to be boring, she would take one of the unforgivable. Even then most people would then choose the killing curse despite the fact it was the most straightforward one of them.

All it did was kill the person. Leaving them – despite being dead – in good health. It also made the body decompose a lot slower than with a normal cadaver. Hermione had read that and was curious about the cause of that, magical books didn't explain why that was. But after doing some basic biology research she noticed that when the killing curse snuffs out all the life in every single cell in the body. It also killed all the bacteria were living inside of it. Therefore, you had to wait for outside bacteria to infect the body before it could start decomposing.

Then there was the imperious curse, that basically took a person's free will. Enslaving them to the person that had cast it. If anything, it was dehumanising. You made literal slaves of the people that you cast it on. Even under the current magical laws there it was frowned upon to enslave humans. So, it was declared one of the unforgivable. Overall a boring spell that had an interesting effect, taking full control over another human being was attractive to some people.

The last of the unforgivable and the most ancient of the three was the Cruciatus Curse. Curcio was the worst of the three in her own opinion. Its only goal in existence was to cause as much pain as was humanly possible. It would trick the mind into the most painful of experiences. Some people who had been tortured by the spell described it as the single most painful moment they had ever experienced.

In their words it was; 'like someone caught lighting in a bottle and placed a thousand bottles on your skin with the lightning going wild,' another account said it was like; 'you are getting branded by a hot stick of metal all over your body constantly."

After having read those accounts and many more Hermione was convinced that the ranking of how dangerous they were compared to one another. It had the killing curse on the first place with crucio following in second place and imperio rounding out the unforgivable.

She had been tempted to choose the last one, as it had an interesting history behind it. it had been around for at least a couple of centuries before the formal formation of a government that could watch over who was doing what to their peers.

It had also been a utensil for the Aurors between the fifteen hundreds and the early sixteenth. Afterwards, it was pretty clear that people that were being tortured with the curse would fess up to any crime that you wanted. Their mind was then focused singly on the release of the pain.

Pondering deeply about the spells she looked up to find her friend Luna sitting there. she was sipping on a small porcelain cup that had a rabbit on it. the handle was in the form of a gold watch that extended into the rabbit picture.

"Morning Hermione." Luna greeted cheerfully, as energetic as she always was.

"Good morning to you too Luna," she said closing the book, sliding it to the side. As she didn't want to become distracted while talking to the person sitting across from her.

"The Nargles have been excited all morning now. They are saying that they have helped you out." Luna declared before taking a biscuit and dunking it in her tea.

"How did they do that?" she asked curiously what Luna meant.

"From what I could tell, they hung around Professor Black last night and they seemed to have influenced her dreams," Luna told her.

"Luna, they influenced her dreams?" she asked.

"It seems like that is what they think." Was the answer that she got.

"Isn't that kind of intruding on someone's private thoughts?"

"kind of…," Luna said looking a slightly to the side of her face. It seemed that she was now looking for some Nargles to tell of. But after a moment she gave up and focused back to her.

"I'll tell them later. But for now, I think it is more important to give some attention to the little mister standing next to you." She said, pointing out the house elf that had appeared next to Hermione.

"Oh, hello," Hermione said recognising the elf from the day before. "Can I help you?" she asked him.

"The Noble lady would like a word." The elf told her.


	7. A subject for discussion

"Miss Granger do you know why you are here?" Professor Black asked her. They were standing in the classroom that was used throughout the week for the lessons of defence against the dark arts. She had been called there by the house elf on the orders of hid Noble Mistress.

"I would like to think that I do," Hermione answered, hoping that this was about the subject of her research for the year, Professor McGonagall had already rejected the supervision position that she had offered. She hoped that Professor Black would be more favourable to it.

"I would like to talk to you about the thing you wrote down yesterday…" she started.

'Bingo, she had hit it right on the head.'

"…and I had some thoughts." She finished, tapping the wood table at the end of the sentence. There was a small echo that reverberated throughout the classroom. Then silence filled the room, making the underlined part more present.

"Of course professor, which ones?" she asked, hoping that during this evaluation there could be a starting point for her research project. She was now working with limited resources, there was still a section of the library that had been excluded from her access. Even though it had been for good reasons, she had been getting frustrated by the rules that surrounded the forbidden section, inside of the restricted section.

"Miss Black please, it's the weekend," Professor Black said, lighting the atmosphere. "I wanted to know some of the backgrounds that made you choose that particular subject." She asked, seemingly wanting to know if she was just out for gaining power through the dark arts or just wanting to objectively research the subject.

"Oh, I'm not sure where to start miss Black…" Hermione said, trying to recall the circumstances that started this entire endeavour.

"How about at the beginning, well not the beginning, beginning," she said, catching herself in not wanting to know the intimate details about the girl's life.

Hermione pondered for a minute, there had been the stories from when she was a kid that had first intrigued her into the subject. But that wasn't really relevant, there was a more concessive moment that would be traced to be the starting point of the entire thing.

"Miss Black how familiar are you whit the wizard and alchemist Nicolas Flamel?" she asked, hoping to see some kind of recognition in the other witches eyes.

No such luck, there was no light that showed recognition in the professor that was standing across from her. it wasn't really a surprise that she didn't know of him. He didn't advertise his existence, only interacting with the outside world through the muggles. There where some grandfathered clauses that applied to him and his wife that didn't apply anymore to the rest of the magical world.

"In short, he is a wizard that was born around the fourteen hundreds, and in his early life, he focused his talents on the magical properties of alchemy. Witch is a predecessor of modern potion making, which isn't really important to this story but it is interesting to…" Hermione started trailing off topic going on about the start of potion making in middle to late middle ages.

"Granger! Please stay on topic." Miss black called out when she noticed that the red thread had been abandoned, seemingly not wanting to end up being tramped by the literary Minotaur that was being introduced by Hermione.

"Sorry, I lost track of it a bit," she smiled a bit sheepishly, hoping that it would ensure that forgiveness would be given to her.

"It's fine," Miss black said apparently the same as all the other people that she had used it on, "but please continue, because the link between an alchemist and your subject still seems to be quite far."

"Alright, so Nicolas spend the early years of his life doing a lot of research into the alchemy of the old world. Wanting to create an object that had been described only as the most precious part of the treasure of the gods." She said pausing for dramatic effect, it would probably have worked better if Miss black was as familiar with the subject as she was.

"The Philosopher's stone. The magical object that can transform all metals permanently to true gold. And also can produce an elixir that arrests the ageing process in its step. He more or less achieved immortality, still kind of connected to the stone for the elixir he is free to walk the earth for as long as he might please." She finished her own start of the fascination with self-gained immortality.

"I see, so then that is where the interest was piqued?" she asked of Hermione, leaning forward over the desk that she had taken a seat behind during her explanation.

"Well if I have to be honest, yes and no," she answered, it was a complicated subject that she wanted to research and Nicolas's stone was only a part of the reason she had started doing personal research into the subject.

"Oh, then please continue." Miss black told her, motioning that she should take a seat before continuing on the long road of describing how she had gotten here.

The girl was happily talking about the way that Nicolas had discovered and improved the way to lengthen his life. It was apparently a difficult process that he kept quite secretive. She had been trying to reach him, on one occasion had he responded whit a small letter written back.

It said that he apricated the letters that had been sending his way. Also, it mentioned that he might have been alive throughout the major events in world history, he was almost never near the places that it was happening.

"So after that moment, I was like, whom can I talk to who was there at the crucial moments in history. And then it came to me as a flash had gone off." The girl looked over to her like she was supposed to have read her mind to know the answer. But she didn't what to get to know her better, it would be against her own morals.

There was a moment of calm that had fallen over the room, she could have some silence. It had been about half an hour since she had called Hermione to explain her choice for the research. Which she realised they still hadn't gotten too. She might have to speed this entire project further along.

As she saw Hermione taking a breath to throw herself into a new direction of talking. Bellatrix intervened, holding her hand up she silenced the girl instantly.

Hermione looked puzzled, she realised that she was fighting between staying silent and calling on her as she had seen done by a few teachers before her.

"Miss Granger, before you jump back into your explanation how you got to your subject. I would like to ask a question, do you know what it is that you want to study?" it was an honest question, she knew that the knowledge of the type of object was held under lock and key. There weren't many places that you could read about it, let alone study one.

"Miss, I'm afraid that I only have a very basic understanding of what it is that I'm asking to study. But that is also the reason. I want to study it so I can understand it." she said, smile gone from her face. Now replaced by the face of someone that would not be stopped by anyone to achieve her goal.

"Alright," She said.

"Alright?" Hermione asked.

"I will be your supervisor or whatever you want me to be, I just have a few things that you need to do for me." She said, wanting some terms and conditions worked out beforehand.

"First I would like to have a copy of all your research you have done in preparation." It was the most simple of the requests she was going to demand. It was of the utmost importance that the girl didn't plan on making one. She was allowing the research from a curious nature, but the production would be out of her scope.

"That can be done," Hermione answered, having pulled out a notepad and a pencil from somewhere, it didn't really surprise her though. The younger witch always seemed to be prepared for anything.

"got it," she said after noting it down, holding her pencil ready for the next demand she would be given.

"Secondly, I would like to get the list of any book, object you will be looking at in advance to screen them." She could see that the girl was going to start protesting, "This is only because most of the books and objects are heavily cursed. And curses that last for a long time manifest themselves into a far more unstable version. So before you will be handed anything, I will approve them. Understood.' She said looking sternly.

The girl nodded after a moment and wrote it down.

The third thing she wanted to demand was something easy, more an administrative problem she wanted to avoid form the beginning. "When you have a question, a request anything that has to do with me, call Prentes my house elf. He can deliver the message to me." She said, proud of herself that the girl wouldn't become running after her for no reason at all.

"But what if we need to discuss the subject?" the young witch asked her, catching her out of left field.

Quickly Bellatrix pondered on it and gave her a simple solution, "just give Prentes the message, I'll decide if the meeting is warranted." So that was also solved already, if only she had a glass of wine. To drink out of respect for her brilliance. But alas there was no wine in her classroom, witch reflecting on it was maybe a good idea. Wine and magic didn't exactly mix.

"Was that all?" Hermione asked her.

'was that all she had wanted to demand?' she thought about it for a moment before realising that there was indeed one thing that she needed to demand.

"Miss Granger, I would appreciate it immensely if you wanted to keep this entire thing private for your friends." She said, to a confused Hermione.

"You want to keep this a secret?" she asked questioning herself while asking that.

"Not exactly, I'm just very set on my privacy. I don't want to mix my work and my off time during the weekends and evenings. So while I will be supervising you, I would like you to keep it under lock and key." She said looking her in the eyes to make her understand.

"I understand," Hermione said looking up from her notebook and leaving the last demand unwritten. Showing that she didn't want to break the demand by having a written record of the explicit demand for privacy.

Both of them seemed to be in agreement about the terms and conditions that Bellatrix had put forward. So there were only a few pleasantries left between then before Bellatrix send Hermione on her way.

As she closed the door, she sat back in her chair. Wand out to seal the room and a second one to silence the inside from the outside. It had been a combination of spells she had started using since her second day in the school day. A few exited third years had walked in before the start of the period and had caught her off guard. They wouldn't be spreading any rumours about it, she had taken certain measures to ensure that.

Thinking back to a few moments before she looked over to the door. The door her new pupil had walked out of moments before.

"Why did you chose such a dark and cursed subject to study, Miss Granger. Why did you choose to study Horcruxes?"

With her supervisor in place, Hermione could finally start her research in the forbidden part of the library. Or at least she could now request to get access through Professor Black. Today was turning out better than she had thought, not only had she gotten a professor to agree to sponsor her research. She had also gotten the one person that wouldn't be hovering over her during her work.

Now she only had to send in the drafts and notes that she would be writing during her project. She should start off with that, getting her notes duplicated and send over to Professor Black.

Taking a seat in one of the nooks in the library she pulled her satchel from her side. With a few taps of her wand, she summoned the relevant papers and enlarged them on the table before her. She thanked the gods that she was diligent enough to already mark the several pieces of research in some kind of structure.

It was clearly marked what was research, external sources, primary sources, and the miscellaneous stuff that didn't really fit in the categories that she had made. The stacks were kinda thick in comparison to the amount of research she would normally do for this kind of project. But on the other side, she was doing her final project that would be the end of her school career and connect it to the things she was going to do after graduating.

A good work structure was a defining quality that she wanted to take with her after leaving this castle. She would miss the big stone walls and it's ancient origins. She would be hard pressed to be employed in a place or business that could come close to the history and pride of Hogwarts.

Looking over the stacks of papers she waved her wand and duplicated them all. It was easy and simple to do, a few more spells had them bound in packets and ready to be sent off to the professor. She would also need a word of explanation she realised when she was looking at the almost identical brown paper packed packages. Taking our a piece of parchment she wrote down the content of each of them, making sure to mark them with a distinctive symbol that she referred to in the text.

The part that contained the research was marked by a circle, the stone of resurrection from the tale of the three brothers.

Her own notes and opinions had been written in a package that was marked by the elder wand. A line was drawn on the left bottom comer, or the top right one, depending on how Professor Black was holding it.

The last package was simply marked by the cloak of invisibility or a triangle, as it was easier to draw.

Now she just had to get those send of to Professor Black, 'what was her elf's name again?' she wondered for a moment. She had noted it down somewhere, taking her notepad she looked at the few scribbles that adorned the page.

'Elf name: Prentes,' stood written at the top of the page. That was it, "Prentes?" she called out.

'pop' sounded to her left, just out of her field of view. She jumped a bit when he walked into view.

"I'm sorry to disturb the mistress." She apologised as he saw her jump.

"It's fine," Hermione said quickly, wanting to make it seem that she wasn't freaking out as much as she was on the inside. Her heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour. Taking a few deep breaths to calm down she looked over to where the elf was standing.

"Prentes, could you next time appear within my view?" she asked the elf, wanting to see if she could eliminate the sheer amount of panic that had coursed through her body she before.

"If the mistress tells me to do that, Prentes will follow those orders." The elf happily responded while he was moving from side to side. Holding his balance on one foot and then the other. Looking at him Hermione was quick to say that he was looking like a pendulum, it was the same rhythmic motion that was repeated time and time again.

Shaking her head from that though she came back to the situation at hand. She had papers to be delivered and some books that she would like to request. But first things first she needed to get these books to send off to Professor Black.

"Prentes, If you wouldn't mind taking these packages to professor Black," she said handing the packages over to the elf.

"It would be my pleasure." The elf said taking them and walking well into her field of view before.

'Pop.'

He vanished from the present plane, she wondered if he was immediately going to deliver those or if he would leave them somewhere for her to collect. Either way, her project had officially started.

Now she just needed to look up which books she wanted to start her research with. There were several histories on the dark art and forbidden magic that had been censored from the normal history books. It had been judged to be too dangerous to the larger population to just be readily available. So they had been written up in special tomes that they were locked away in forbidden sections of the larger libraries of the wizarding world.

Hogwarts with her large library had been able to host a couple of those books. She just had to look in which ones she had the highest chance to find what she was looking for.

From what she had gathered Horcruxes had been not only been erased from the largest part of the knowledge available in the wizarding world. It had also been removed from the books that were made for the purpose of hosting that kind of information. There were only a couple of references to them left, was all that she had been able to gather.

But for now, she had to make a choice between, 'a chronological account of the forbidden arts,' or 'What went wrong with the evolution of magic.'

She decided that the former would be more helpful than the latter. So after that was decided she was tempted to call the elf again. But there had been very little time between her calling him last and it seemed to her that she might be inconveniencing him. She would let it rest for a second, not wanting to seem too pushy.

Looking out of the window she saw that the sun was going down already, the talk between her and Professor Black had been rather long. And the preparations that she was taking now was also not a task of short breath.

'It might be time for a short break,' she told herself. It had not been the first time that she would be working for hours and hours on end.

Harry had needed to put her to bed not so many nights ago and she was not in the mood to have that happen again. One time had been more than enough in her opinion. Pushing her chair back she waved her wand over the papers and first froze and then shrunk them down so they could fit in the satchel.

It was just a bit too early for dinner, but she had never had any trouble asking the elves for a quick bite to ate. Walking out of the library she saw that madam Prince was surprised to see her leave without a new book in hand.

"Good evening madam Prince." She waved to the older witch.

"Evening miss Granger." The librarian called out half-heartedly, wondering if she was seeing things. Hermione Granger leaving the library emptyhanded? Unthinkable, that was just not how things are done. In her experience, the girl would be going into the libraries between the stacks of books and then would leave with more than she could carry in the beginning. And over the years the stacks became more reasonable. Recently there had always been at least one maybe two books that would be travelling with her out of the building.

Now though she was looking at the girl walking out without a book in sight. If she didn't know better she would have sworn that this was a part of a prank by the Weasley twins.

'An evening alone in her chambers was just wonderful to her,' Bellatrix thought while she was sitting at her dinner table. It had been put there at her own request. She felt that during her weekend she was free from the school. And as she was free from it she didn't want to join the others in the great hall.

This wasn't a problem professor Trelawney had been doing this for the last couple of years. Taking her food in her chambers not venturing far outside of it.

The food that the elves had appeared on it had been adequate, far better than what she could get at the leaky cauldron, but also not as good as she would have gotten at the Black manor.

It was fine for her, it was a weekend and she was also drinking a bit. So the taste was already diluted to the point that she didn't really notice the good parts from the bad. Not that there were any bad parts of her food. The elves would have made sure of that.

She looked over to the brown paper packages that had been delivered earlier that evening. Prentes had dropped them off as soon as he had gotten them in his hands. She had yet to get around to them, she did chuckle a bit at reading the distinctions between the different packages.

It had been a while since she had remembered, let alone having read it. It had brought back some memories from a long time ago. She, Andromeda and Narcissa had played out the tale several times during their youth. It had been fun, she would have taken the role of the oldest brother. Taking the power of the world in her hands as a wand.

Her sister had fought over the privilege of the surviving brother. More often than not, Andromeda took the role of the middle child, mirroring the reality on the story. It had not been apparent to her that it had not been the dead people that Andromeda was pulled to. It had been the people she had lost due to her family name when she eventually got together with her husband it had all clicked.

Andromeda had been less present in the younger years always being out and about discovering the world. It had been the Muggle friends she made, and then promptly lost when her guardians obliviated their memories as she left them. She had gone over and over to that town. Making the same friends that she would lose the same day. For years she had done that. Going to the same town. Same people. She had gotten more and more depressed until she hit Hogwarts. There, free from the pressing supervision of their father, she had gotten to be friends whit whom she wanted when she wanted. As a Black she had a great privilege at the Slytherin house, not a person would bother her while she was exploring her friendships between other houses.

Andromeda had been truly happy for the first time during those years. When she eventually met her husband, Bellatrix and Narcissa despised the man. Ted Tonks had not found an ally within the house of Black.

But after they had gotten married, a wedding she and her sister attended, they had mended they're differenced for the greater good. Andromeda's happiness.

As for the role of the youngest brother, it was one that Narcissa had written on her like she was born to be that person. She had been excellent in making herself disappear when the important parties were doing stuff, yet being close enough to make a difference when needed.

It had been their story that eventually seemed to have been told, over the years. Each of them growing more and more in the direction of the brother. Andromeda had not yet seen the bad parts of her choices and Bellatrix really hoped that she never would. It had been painful for her to see her suffer after being cast aside by her parents. She wouldn't want that to happen again.


	8. The case of Granger

It had been no secret that she hadn't looked into the histories of the students she taught in her class. Not wanting to mingle with mudbloods on purpose, so she operated under ignorance is bliss. If she didn't know and assumed that all of them where purebloods it was fine.

But reading over the notes of miss Granger. Also named Hermione as she discovered in mind of the Margins of a page she had apparently been bored and had doodled it about a hundred times there. Hermione, the first time the had read it she had slowly broken the name down. She knew that the name in and of itself mend well born, of noble lineage. But Granger, that was something else.

She had taken it upon herself to not look any of the family names up, obviously she recognised a few without trouble. And there had been one or two that had only now had come back to her as being part of the pureblood courts. But the name granger told her nothing.

It was like it was mocking her, just standing there. Being all mysterious and shit. But she couldn't risk looking it up, that would make things real. Things that she would prefer to stay in the vaguest of terms.

Because if Hermione Granger turned out to be anything but a pureblood witch. It would mean that not native magic users where better than the ones that those that it was given to as a gift from magic itself.

No. She couldn't risk it. No matter how much she might have wanted to look her up, see her face staring back at her. Letting her know that she was indeed a witch of noble blood. But there was nothing she could do now. Now, till the end of the year when she could say goodbye to this merlin forsaken school she couldn't risk it.

It would change the way that she would teach, it would put her job at risk for just ignoring the lesser magic users in her class. And that could be an offence that she might lose her job over. And she wasn't planning for that to happen.

No, she would live in ignorance. Happily pretending that Hogwarts was still the pureblood school it started out as.

But Hermione granger was a mystery, her essays and homework where all done with a quilt and ink. But her notes were done in a somewhat foreign kind of writing. It looked like a pencil, only it couldn't be erased. There were also no marking of ink spilling, or anything that would indicate that it was written with a quill.

The content of the notes was fine, from time to time it would go on and on for certain subjects that didn't really seemed to matter to the core subject of what was being handled. Most of them seemed to start towards the time that the doodles started to inhabit part of the page.

She had seen it before in her nephew's schoolwork when they were still on talking terms. She would tell Sirius that he should stay on topic when he was making an essay about that topic. But it was of little avail, he was stuck in his roots and had told her that he didn't see a problem with that.

She hoped that Hermione would handle criticism better. It was maybe a bit late for her to correct six years of school, but some beauty fixes never hurt anyone she reasoned. Summoning a piece of parchment she started noting down the problems that she had with what was written in the notes. The content was mainly fine, but the application on the subject was sometimes a bit out of date. She couldn't really blame her for that, information on the subject had been locked away for a long time now.

After about an hour Bellatrix put her quill down, the parchment was getting filled slowly but surely. She would have to rework it before handing it off to Hermione. Repeating mistakes could be written as one. So that the girl might learn from them instead of just seeing the same thing marked about forty times.

Turning over the page she saw something new. Most of the notes Hermione had written were on one side of the page, leaving the other side empty. She had surmised that when the girl was looking at them it was inconvenient to need to turn the page over. Especially when there was so much information to be looked at for this subject.

No, this page wasn't empty. This page had some things written on it. looking it over she quickly realised that it had absolutely nothing to do with the project, let alone be a part of the research. What was written there was a first impression.

A first impression written about her, she realised skimming the text a few times. Seeing her name written out a few times.

She looked away, was it not private she reasoned. It was written by a student about someone that was not supposed to ever read it. but it was here now, and Hermione had handed over the notes without question or demands. So it was fine to look at them?

The dilemma kept playing in the back of her head when she looked over and started reading the text.

'September fifth, Defence against the dark arts lesson one.

While the lesson started off with petrification, Professor Black seems to know what she is doing. She was quick and professional dealing with the situation.'

She laughed at that observation, quick and professionally? That would be a lie, she had been shocked to see that some idiot would try to unlock a door before checking if there had been curses placed upon it in the first place. It had been her status as teacher that had made her dealing with it quick, she didn't want to look for another job for the coming ten months so she had carted that boy off to the sick wing.

'When in class, we had the chance to take a closer look at her, it seems that when she is in the hallways there is no way to focus on her. might be a spell.'

The girl was right, when she would leave the classroom and roamed the halls there would be a spell hiding her true position form the other people around her. They could still see her but out of focus. It was a handy trick she had picked up form her own time in Hogwarts, avoiding guys had been much easier like that.

'She looks…'

'Here we go,' she thought reading the first part of the paragraph, 'this can only be bad.'

'She looks, nice. Not in the way of being nice, but form the aesthetical side, she definably could be placed in the category of pretty people.'

'Oh,' she thought, 'that's good. It's nice to know that even though you have hit your late forties some girl will still validate your existence.'

'Her way of teaching is interesting though, there were just the many questions she asked us and not a lot of teaching from her part. But that might just be because this is her first lesson and she needed to see where we are at.'

Right again, Hermione was hitting them on the head, everything here except the first part was true. And if that was true she was also pretty. Which was something to feel good about.

Reading over her own notes that were now also at Professor Black's office, Hermione was getting a bit bored. Her schoolwork had been finished and she was just waiting for the thumbs-up from her supervisor's side to continue working on her project. It had been taking longer than she had expected, there had only been about a few hundred pages of notes to be looked over. She even had magically highlighted the important parts of her notes so they could be found quickly.

She had been disappointed when there wasn't a single alteration to the notes she had send in. During the duplication spell she had added a small charm that would show the differences between the originals, which she had, and the copies, that wherein the professors possession.

Normally with Mcgonnagle, she could follow along where she was looking in the text as she would use her quill to highlight where she had read already. There were times that her homework would be graded without her every lifting the feather. But she liked seeing the magical green treads moving over the page. No such luck here it seemed, Professor Black must have taken a separate piece of parchment to write her comments on. It was not unusual for the teaching staff to do, but most would just edit the text on the original pages like it didn't really matter. That was why she handed in duplicated pages that she would use to look at the way her work was being graded.

She was now just flipping through the pages and looking half at them, most of what was in here didn't really serve a purpose anymore. It was many just a wide net cast out in the library, about anything that talked about longevity and how to grow older. She had learned that there wasn't any conclusive answer to the question.

The only thing that was known and that could be shown with data was that magical beings lived on average a while longer than the non-magical alternatives. Wizards and Witches lived on average about thirty years longer than muggles, even squibs lived a whole decade longer.

But there where a few wizards that did it a lot better than others, Faris Spavin minister of magic during the Victorian era had set the admirable record of being the longest serving minister and also being the oldest person holding the job. He had taken it as a hundred and nine year old and only resigning at a hundred and forty seven. He continued to live till his hundred and seventy second birthday. He was what many people consider to be the outlier, the Absolut top age a wizard could attain.

Other examples where all around the same hundred and sixty mark, a few witches out of eastern Asia reported to be just shy of two centuries. The magical ministry over there had made no claim to disprove these individuals. So they where written up as the longest living magical being's without help.

And that footnote had taken Hermione down a rabbit hole. The fact that it was needed to be specified that people reached those ages without aid was fascinating.

Taking that knowledge she had canvassed the library again and had found an old tome written up by the French magical community about curiosities in their country.

Here was where she had found Nicolas Flamel, in the book that was ancient even when it might have arrived at Hogwarts he was described as having passed over into his third century on the earth. There had been no mention of the philosophers stone as she would later find out he created, but just that he was still looking fresh and spry as he had the century before and the one before that.

It was with him that Hermione had first considered that their actuality might be a way of living forever. In some way or another.

But looking back to her notes she turned over the page, expecting to see the same thing as before. A page on the left empty, the page on the right filled with notes.

Only this time it was different. This time she had made a note on the backside of one of the pages.

"Oops…" she mullered reading her own note back again. comprehending what stood there made her close her eyes, "Merlin," she said letting a sigh escape her mouth.

Why had she not looked over these before giving these to Professor Black. She is going to hit herself in the head. 'What else did might she have forgotten?' ran through her mind as she fancily started looking through the rest of the notes. Seeing that it didn't reveal any more descriptions of her professors. 'How was she going to explain this to her later?' She wondered.

That would have to be a problem for the next day she thought. The moon started shining through the windows on top of the Gryffindor tower. She had found it years ago as an attic that had been sealed away. It was quite spacious and had a window with view on the forbidden forest and the lake that was laying in front of it. Despite the raucous that the Gryffindor tower made during the day and most of its evening hours. Up there it was muffled enough to not bother her at all.

But for now she had to get some rest. And rest there would be in the form of several silencing spells on her bed and a charm that would stop people approaching her bed.

She loved the people in her house to bits but they where not ones to take the clue when someone was trying to get some private time. Or was trying to sleep early in the weekend. And that was all that she wanted to do today. Just sleep in and get an early start on her Sunday.

Slipping through the hidden entrance that she had placed in the tower to connect her annex to the staircase she walked down. Popping her head in the rooms to see that no one was keeping some kind of animal that was strictly forbidden to keep at the tower.

From the top down she noticed that almost all of the floors of all the rooms where covered in a layer of clothes that had been discarded over the week. The house elves hadn't had the chance to clean the tower yet this weekend.

They clean it when there is no one awake to see them do it. But as it stood there had been people awake around the clock. And she wasn't seeing that stopping any time soon. Since around two years ago the twins had started an experiment. How long can it take for the tower to stay uncleaned?

The answer that year had been about seven weeks. At which point Mcgonnagle evacuated the tower for a day so it could be brought back in order. The elves had succeeded but were terribly overworked after that moment.

After that point, it had been more playful. It wasn't taken to the degree of the first attempt but it sure was taken seriously. Since they had returned from home the boy's side of the tower had been cleaned ones on a Wednesday when all of them were out of the tower.

The girls had been better, the only night of cleaning that had been skipped was the one from Friday to Saturday. But that was an exception. They had been catching up from the summer.

Reaching her own floor she peered int and saw that it had been deserted. Not a single person was inside of the room. It was an impeccable room if you didn't walk farther than the entrance. A perspective from inside the room revealed a multitude of clothes piles. Not all of them where hers the other people that lived in the room all had one of their own. And in her opinion it wasn't a mess. It was completely organised. The cleanest things weren't in the pile, so she knew where to take her clothes if she was going to be doing potions or Care of Magical Creatures.

But for now she had a singular goal in mind, sleep and as much of it as she could get. Waving her wand up she placed the repelling charm up in just a jiffy. Her school uniform had found it's way to the pile as soon as she had tossed her wand onto the bed. It was like a weight was shedding from her figure.

It was good to be back in her bed, she had missed it from this morning. It had been a long day for her. from getting up to seeing Professor Black, getting her as her supervisor. And sending her a not that described how good she looked. It had been an interesting day for all of them.

She looked back out of the window, the moon had risen completely above the horizon and was now shining bright and proud over the castle. Because the light pollution here was so low she could see the bright spots in the sky clearly. Even from the lit up room, it was difficult not the see the black blanket with light holes pricked in it above her.

She could see the slight flickering the stars did all the time. there was a small giggle that escaped from her as she thought back to asking the astronomy professor about that. He had told her that it was impossible to know what that might be and that she should be asking better questions. She had sent her parents an owl about it and they had replied that the light in fall through the atmosphere shifts a little bit causing the flickering. When she had told the professor he had been shocked to hear it. dismissing the notion that muggles might know more than he did about the heavens.

She still smiled about that from time to time, she looked up. The ceiling was still transparent, there was a streak of light passing over the sky.

"Goodnight," she told no one in particular.


	9. Forbidden books

Opening her eyes, she saw the clouds. It was a grey morning she saw looking up. It was not nearly as sunny as it had been in the past few days. The Scottish highlands must have gotten tired of the summer weather it had received over the past couple of months.

Sitting up she looked over the other four beds that filled the chamber. Only two of them were currently occupied and looking at the cleanly made ones. She could see that the occupants hadn't returned last night. Parvati was not present, 'might have spent the night in the Ravenclaw tower with her sister,' She thought. Lavender Brown was also missing but she had a hunch that if she went looking for her in the boy's chamber, there would be a peaceful picture of Ronald and her sleeping.

It wouldn't have been the first time that the girls spend their night elsewhere. She herself had been forced to share her bed with Ginny and Luna over the last couple of years. They had the problem that they would talk for far too long. Forcing Luna to spend the night as the curfew was in effect. 'not that that mattered much to the Gryffindor's," but Hermione had offered her bad ones. She had planned to spend the night on the sofa to give Luna a place to sleep. But the girl had grappled her to the bed and had just kinda fallen asleep like that. It had been quite adorable and she couldn't get it over her heart to try and escape from her grip then. Ginny had wanted to stick around then, so she enlarged the bed and they had spent the night with the three of them in her bed.

Those where the pleasant memories that she was recalling now. Now however was the moment of grey and sad days to come. Her experience with the weather here was excellent. If there was a sun in the sky in the morning it was fine for most of the day. But if there was a grey morning they would de in for a couple of days of rainy weather.

It was not like she minded the weather that much if it was grey like it was now. She would be spending her time in the library or one of the classrooms tutoring students that had asked her help. But for now, no one had asked her to help her she wasn't yet doing that.

Now she was looking through her clothes pile and found a pair of jeans that she had worn for a single day coming to the school that she put on. And her top was just an old t-shirt she wasn't sure if she had stolen it from Harry or Ron a couple of years ago during the quidditch world cup. It didn't really matter to whom it might have belonged. It was hers now.

Descending the stairs she was careful to step over Colin as she made her way through the common room. There were a plethora of bodies that were sleeping in all sorts of positions. Looking at them she could imagen that they had only just gone to sleep or in the past couple of hours. It would have been very late, or early depends on how you counted.

Swinging the fat ladies portrait open she saw that the fires had been lit in the hallways, providing light and heat to the old castle. Despite it still being summer the insides of the building would soon be freezing if no heating was used.

Now though it was a bit chilly descending the stairs towards the great hall. As it was still early enough they would still be serving breakfast for a bit. So there was no real rush getting there. Instead, she looked at the several leaded windows that showed several depictions of the school's history in them. They were part of the expansive number of works that did exactly that.

They where beautiful to look at and where unique because they didn't move like the other paintings. That was hanging in the castle, but that might just be because it was made of glass instead of paint.

She wondered as she arrived at the great hall. As expected it was similarly deserted as it was yesterday. She was happy to see Luna sitting at the Gryffindor table, it might not be her house but she had adopted it nevertheless. She was a loud supporter of both Ravenclaw during quidditch as she would be for Gryffindor. Even when both teams would be going up against each other, she didn't want to choose a side. It had been fun to see how she would combine both the houses in her costume during those matches.

"Morning Luna," she said taking her seat, looking out over the table as she selected a couple of pieces of toast. And some jam to put on there.

Luna seemed to be distracted as she didn't look up from the daily prophet, it was curious to see the girl read anything of newsworthy reporting that wasn't the Quibbler.

Taking her seat she looked over the paper that Luna had in front of her. It took her a bit before she could read what the headline was saying.

"Again Muggles Killed by Unknown Assailant," that had been going on for a while now. She had first read about a magical homicide at the end of the last school year. It had been unclear who had committed the crime and from what she knew of the ministry it probably wouldn't be solved till they had found a scapegoat. It was in their nature to cover this kind of stuff up. It made them look bad to the other ministry's.

Starting to spread out her jam on the toast she looked over at the teacher's table. Not having paid it attention since she had seen Luna sitting here.

To her surprise, the heads of the four houses were seated up there. It was not often that they would be here early on weekends, it was a day off for them too.

But not now apparently. They were all just sitting here, discussing something between the four of them. It must have been an urgent matter. She couldn't hear what they were saying but that didn't mean much. A silencing spell was easy to cast to keep the noisy people out of the loop.

Looking back to Luna, she jumped a bit. The was now looking fervently at her. Apparently having abandoned the paper she was now looking at herself.

"Hi, Luna," she tried again. managing a half wave to her.

"Morning Hermione," Luna replied. Still staring curiously passionate at her face and in her eyes.

"Luna, what are you doing?" she asked, at a loss for what was happening.

"Schuss, they might hear you," Luna said shushing her as she held her finger up to Hermione's mouth. It worked wonderfully, Luna discovered. Hermione stayed silent seemingly unable to start talking again.

"There are a bunch of Nargles hanging around your head. I've never seen this many together without it affecting the person itself. But," she suddenly snapped her finger next to her temple, which made her jump a bit again.

Released from the spell that had kept her silent for the moments gone by she asked her what she was telling her, or at least insinuating. "Luna, what are you saying, Nargles having to take a liking to my head?"

"It seems so," Luna replied.

"And that should be affecting me?" she asked the apparent expert on all things Nargles.

"Yup."

"Was that why you were studying my face?

"Sure let's go with that," Luna said sitting back in her seat. From where she was sitting, she was still studying her face and a bit to the side of it. Arguably she would say that Luna was looking for the invisible creatures that were hanging around her head apparently.

"Luna, do you know what might be attracting these to me?" she asked.

"We're not sure what exactly it is that pulls them to the wizard or witch, but it seems that smarter people," she gestured to her, "are more likely to be targeted."

'That seemed to be panning,' out Hermione thought as she recalled all the dark and forbidden magic she knew about. It was not unlikely that the creatures where currently feasting on her mind.

"But don't worry," she saw the look of worry pass over her face, "there have been no cases of brain damage in connection with Nargles." She told her.

"that's reassuring." She said, eating the rest of her toast.

"Morning mistress," Bellatrix heard from the side of her bed, it was her house elf waking her up. Well waking up was a large word here. She had been lying awake for a couple of hours already, not being able to get up but also no ability to fall back asleep. It was feeling spend.

The girl's notes had been descriptive and towards the end even helpful to follow along to. She had listened to her when she had asked for all the notes that she might have made during her preliminary research.

Opening her eyes she looked over towards the elf. "Any post for me?" she asked the creature.

"Only one item." He answered.

"Well don't stand there like that, give it to me," Bellatrix said while sitting up. She reached out and summoned it towards herself with a flick of her wrist.

Wandless magic might be difficult, but small feats of magic where still well within the possibility of her arsenal. And levitating a piece of paper about two feet was not exactly the hardest thing in the world.

Looking at it she saw that it was some internal mail that didn't need to be addressed correctly, so it was a guessing game from whom this might be coming. She opened it up, carefully. Knowing full well that she hadn't checked it for any traps of spells that might be cast on it.

It quickly became clear whom it was from. The handwriting fist and then the signoff that was so official.

'From miss. Granger  
prefect of the Gryffindor house'

She snored when she read it all prim and proper written down. She wondered how the girl was holding herself when writing it. Leaning over her desk, the point of her tongue sticking out a little bit.

'What are you thinking about,' a voice asked her, inside of her mind.

'I'm just imagining her writing the letter how bad can that be?' she thought back to the voice that had fallen silent. 'Good.'

'but why with her tongue out a bit?' the voice asked cautiously.

'Because… it was because… I don't know, fuck you,' she managed to think. 'why had Hermione's tongue been out, even for a little bit.'

'I mean she is cute,' the voice called in what could be described as a last-ditch effort to derail the entire thing.

"Could you shut the fuck up!" she yelled out to the empty room.

A soft echo reverberated through the room from the loud and sudden sound she had just made, but that quickly subsided. Leaving her alone in silence with her thoughts.

'there is nothing wrong with it,' the voice started before she had whipped out her wand and exploded the small table that was standing next to the dresser. It flew completely to pieces shattering a couple of small ornamental glasses that were decorating the room. It didn't matter much to her. It wasn't her property that was being destroyed.

The voice stayed silent from then on. Apparently not wanting to anger her any more.

"That's what you get!" she called out ones more to the empty room. The splinters littered the floor and had been blasted onto her bed. It would need to be thoroughly cleaned before she could use it again. waving her wand she summoned the piece of paper that had set all of this off.

Looking at the handwriting she felt the rage coming on again. Breathing slowly she pushed it back and actually read what the message said before destroying what was written on it.

Reading over it she saw that it was just a list of books that miss Granger had requested from the forbidden section of the library. Looking them over she saw no immediate signs that the girl was trying to make a Horcrux herself, so she wrote a quick go-ahead to the librarian. Clearing her for those books and no others, just these books.

Arriving at the library Hermione looked out over the rows of shelves that lined the walls and the many bookcases that stood in the middle of it all. There were many books that filled the shelves but none of them could help her with her research. No from now on she would be reading the dark and forbidden books that were kept in the library.

"Good morning Madame Prince," Hermione said, greeting the librarian that was working behind the counter. Keeping track of all the books that were coming in and out of the library. It was a daunting task that no one possibly could have done starting from zero. But the librarians had been doing this job for a long time now. They had a record going back nearly nine centuries. The thick volumes that filled the shelves behind her were all that. Just books of books that had been written full diligently with the names of all the student that had to lend a book before. And what happened to it afterwards.

But now she would have to take out some books from the forbidden section. And that section had a book all for itself. It was a thin notebook in comparison with the others but that was to be expected. Not a lot of people would retrieve books from that part of the library. Only a few people could have access to these books, and even fewer could give access to them. Only the heads of the houses, the professor of defence against the dark arts and the headmaster could give out the order to release them from their caged location.

It was absolutely forbidden for the students that got access to these books to share them with other students. There wasn't only a school penalty bound to it but also a real punishment from the ministry. As it was still forbidden knowledge to the general public and they weren't changing their position on that anytime soon.

"What can I do for you today Hermione?" she asked, even though it was quite clear that she knew what she was going to say. She had received the note earlier that day from the house elf. It told her that any book on the list was fine for Miss Granger to pick up.

"I'm here for A Chronological Account Of The Forbidden Arts," she said. Holding the bag she had brought to carry the book in. She might be able to get a hold of the book, she didn't want to be questioned about it. So she had brought a bag to carry it in till she had reached her tower attic hideaway.

"Ah, If you could give me a moment," Madam Prince said before vanishing tough a door to the side of her working space. She was going to fetch the book Hermione surmised as she disappeared from view.

It had taken a minute before she appeared back, walking out of the door. Curiously without a book, the only thing that she had in her hands was a bustle of keys. "just a moment dear," she said walking past her to the other side of the library.

Following her along to their Hermione started to question how easy it might be to get the book she had asked for. "Madam Prince, why are you carrying those keys with you? Can't you just open it with a spell?" she asked the older woman.

A slight shackle could be heard, "Only if you want to clean the ashes from the floor she said, as she stopped before a door that Hermione hadn't seen before. Taking a particularly boring key and fitting it to the lock did she look over her shoulder; wanting to make sure that no one was seeing this.

Turning the key Hermione could see why she didn't want anyone to see this. Instead of the door opening, the floor started to lower down taking the door and a piece of the wall with it. looking to where the door and wall had been she saw that there must be some kind of spell masking it. There were a fake door and wall now occupying the space where she had just gone down.

The floor closed above them as soon as they had cleared it with their heads. Suddenly darkness surrounded them. It went on for a bit like that before madam prince realised the error of her ways.

"Oh, pardon me," she said changing the bustle of keys and grabbing a hold of her wand, "Lumos."

The chamber that they were approaching was massive. When she looked around from side to side, the realisation came over her face. This was as big as the library on top of it. only here there were fewer books in place on the bookshelves. It was quite a sad sight.

"Don't worry about the books," Madam Prince said as she noticed Hermione looking distraught about the books, "those are mostly old volumes or damaged books. Not everything down here is a book on the forbidden knowledge." She said looking pridefully over the low number of books that she had to move down here.

Waiting for the platform to come to a full stop, she was lead along the empty shelves till they reached one of the short sides of the room. There was locked chess placed inside of a big iron cage. The books that were inside of that chess were certainly well protected from thievery. Not that that happened often in Hogwarts, but these books had been given to the school from the ministry on very strict terms and conditions.

There was to be no interaction with unauthorized people and books. All interactions would have to be logged in a special ledger that was connected with the ministry through magic. Any time the chess was opened without writing in the ledger first would trigger an alarm that would send a squad of veteran Aurors to the location of the chess to apprehend the criminals that were taking the books.

But now whit permission Madam Prince picked up the Ledger and wrote down, first her name, and then Hermione's. With that all out of the way she moved over to the cage and took out a very similar boring key from the bustle and opened it up.

Going from there the put down the keys and reached over to the chess. Putting her hand on it she waited for a second.

"Oof, no alarm this time,' said lifting her hand from the chess, "the last time they had not looked at the ledger and made a right mess of the library above trying to get into this place."

Hermione looked shocked when she heard that information. The library had always been in pristine condition. She couldn't imagine it in any kind of disarray. It was just a place that she had seen in such peaceful times. "That is terrible," she managed to say as madam prince opened the chest.

"It was a mess to clean up," she responded digging through the books inside, "could you hold these for a second," she asked holding the keys up behind her. Quickly taking them Hermione saw them change shape when she took them in her hands. Suddenly they weren't all grey boring keys. Now they were all different shapes and colours, not two of them were the same.

It would be easy to see which one was which she now realised. All Madam Prince would need to do was look in her hand and chose the right key. The outside world would be none the wiser to what key was used.

"Here we go," she announced holding a book over her head. It was of small stature, bounded in some kind of black leather. The title was written in gold lettering on the spine. There where a couple of details that revealed themselves to her as it was handed over to her.

"The cover moves," she exclaimed almost dropping it on the floor.

"Does it?" Madam Prince said, "they do that." There was a nontrivial raising of her shoulders as she took the keys back to close the chest and the cage it was placed in.

Sitting back at her desk she pulled out the book out of the bag. The cover was still moving around, certain points were travelling from side to side and even just disappearing underneath the rest of the other impurities.

Opening the book she read the title as it was originally written before censoring had had its way with the book. It read 'The full and comprehensive history of the parts unwritten.' Apparently, that had been to reviling for the ministry. But alas she got to read the book now. Without any of the corrections or blacked out pages she had found in books they had left in the public eye with edits.

Going over the chapter list she was pleasantly surprised that the chapter had been ordered in decades with subdivisions where needed. It would easy to run through it, skipping the centuries that didn't matter to her research and she know roughly when it was invented.

So she could just focus her research on a couple of decades in the fifteenth century when the mention that she had found had been. The quickly skimmed through the first chapter to get a feel for the book. Like the letter size or the font, it was printed in.

The first page left her stopped in her tracks. The printing size was comedically tiny compared to what normally would be described as a small font size. 'this will take a bit longer then I had thought,' she realised looking over the page that was lying open on her desk.

The stack of papers that she had placed next to her for her notes would be shrinking in size quickly. She had prepared her usual amount to make a synopsis of most of the chapters. Now though she doubted that she had brought enough of them.

The time flew by that afternoon. When she had been halfway through dinner, a house elf had come up to the tower and offered to bring the meal to her there, not wanting to interrupt her if she was too busy. She had been thankful that they had found her.

The elves had been so friendly to look for her during mealtimes after she had passed out one day in her third year, she had been using a time turner and had yet to figure out how her schedule of eating was changed by it. They had been finding her after that moment and feeing her on the spot that she was that moment. After she had given the time turner back at the end of that year, it had been less necessary to keep up with her that much. But they still held an eye on her when they couldn't find her in the great hall.

The night had fallen before she had finished the "quick" look trough of the relevant chapters. The rest would have to wait for tomorrow and the week that followed. Now she was spent, it had taken too much out of her to keep it going through the night.


	10. We're back on track

Monday second week was where the fun really started, no longer where they under control of the parents that raised them. No longer was home a place in recent memory. No now the students of Hogwarts where at home here. At the school, in the different houses the students made themselves readied themselves for the second week.

Hermione had been up earlier than most of the other students in the Gryffindor house. Only Neville had beaten her to the punch, but he was preparing the greenhouses for the nocturnal plants.

They had met up at the breakfast tables on the great hall just as the house elves left to the kitchen. All the golden plates and cups placed in long straight rows, not one of them out of line. It was a very neat view of the otherwise quite chaotic dinner hall.

They didn't do much talking, both of them still waking up from the sleep they had been rudely woken up from. Even if it was voluntary, she didn't like it one bit that the only spell that could be cast to act as an alarm was the one that pulled the person out of bed and dumped them on the floor.

She had been smart enough to cast a permanent arrest momentum charm next to her bed that she didn't facepalm on the floor every morning but there it was still uncomfortable being dropped an inch onto cold stone. But it did what it said on the tin, it woke you up real good.

But even that moment was fleeting, as they had walked to the Great hall, Neville and her had slowed the speed that they were walking dramatically. It was nearly comical, she thought as they had entered the hall, sauntering into the room. There was lucky none there to see them. But that was to be expected, the both of them were most of the time the two students who ate before a living soul would enter after them.

There had been occasions that Luna would already be eating when they entered, seemingly being completely awake. Those days they picked the Ravenclaw table to sit at. Not wanting to leave her sitting on her own when they sat together a table over.

This morning however there was no one sitting at any of the tables or on any of the benches. Breakfast was theirs and they would enjoy it as much as they could. There was something nice to it, there was a certain rumbling of the fires that burned in the several fireplaces lining the side of the walls. And when it was raining, as this morning it was. The roof would let through a slight ticking of raindrops falling on it. the enchantment that allowed them to look through the roof, would give way to some clouds and fake rain trickling through.

It was nice.

At the far side of the room a small wooden trapdoor opened up and an owl stepped through it before taking to the air again. there was a paper connected to his foot. As it was flying straight at her she summoned a couple of knuts that she held in her hand as the owl landed on the table. It held out it's paw with a little bag connected to it. only after she had payed the owl did it drop a miniature version of the daily prophet.

As it flew of again, Hermione tapped the paper and made it grow back to real size. It was a new trick that had been used to increase the amount of papers sold without making changes to the delivery system. It worked well, now the number of daily prophets sold per owl was about twenty instead of the one or two in the past.

Glossing over the front page she saw that the minister was still putting their propaganda on the front page, but it didn't say much. 'Well it said more or less, Ministry good others bad." Which was a bit too on the nose for her liking. Not that she apricated the propaganda at all, but with bad version she could live.

"Anything interesting?" Neville asked, downing the remainder of his coffee, and filling it back up again.

"Not really, Famous actress Rita Flange passed yesterday evening," she read out loud, "she reached the age of a hundred and fifty years. That's not bad," she then added as commentary.

"Rita Flange?" Neville asked, taking a moment to think something happened to be remembered by him. "I think that my grandmother liked her in a theatre production a few years back. Rita had been one of the standout moments of that show. It's a pity that she passed." He said taking a sip from his new cup of coffee.

"Argh, that's hot." He exclaimed as he put the cup down again.

"What did you expect Neville?" she asked, trying to suppress a laugh. It was difficult but she felt that she had managed it. Neville might have thought differently about it but he was currently trying to not burn himself with coffee.

In all their distraction they hadn't noticed the third person that had entered the great hall. It wasn't really their fault she wasn't noticed. As the faculty would enter through a side door that was hidden to the hall by one of the support pillars.

Now though, Professor Black was sitting at the edge of the table, still somewhat hidden by view. The black clothes that she wore blended in with the shadows perfectly.

Hermione was still laughing at Neville when she looked around the room again. it was serene in the hall, not a single person was filling any of the places, just empty.

She let her eyes travel from the entrance side of the hall, all the way across the wall opposite the one her back was turned to, till she ended at the far end of the faculty table. Not a single person in sight.

"You almost done?' Neville asked her, as he got up to leave.

"Go ahead Neville, I'll see you later at class." She told the boy as she continued eating her toast. As he left Hermione was left in the apparently empty great hall.

Bellatrix watched the boy leave the hallway from the table. It was now that she could take a good look at her mentee. If she was looking at someone else doing what she was now doing, she would have scoffed at them. But doing it herself she was a bit ashamed. All of yesterday she had been debating with the voice that it should shut up.

But now sitting down in the great hall, she was looking at the object of her frustration. And it was just sitting there about halfway down the hall. Just there, oblivious to her sitting there. It was almost annoying if it wasn't so much feeling for her.

Reaching her hand out she took a cup of coffee from the spread that was put in front of her. It was nice and hot, just as she had told the elves earlier on at her stay in the caste.

It had been a change of environment that she hadn't gone through since she had left the school itself a long time ago. It was like she was coming home again, but on the other side it was also coming back to the place where a bunch of authority figures had annoyed her for seven years.

But now she was the authority figure. She would have to look after the little people that would be inhabiting the school. She wasn't looking forward to that. It wasn't in her abilities to look after small animals let alone a witch or wizard.

From the first moment she could she had switched the hours that she would need to supervise the annoying little children. She had also devised her plan of not knowing who the mudbloods would be, it was genius, she would just lock those memories away for the time being and only look at them when the year would be over. That way she didn't have to teach them knowingly.

But back to her breakfast, or better said her watching a girl having breakfast. It was frustrating just sitting there sipping her coffee. Wanting to go over and talk to her, but she couldn't it would be unprofessional. Despite everything it was still a line she didn't want to cross.

'you could just go…' the voice started, from the back of her mind.

'We've talked about this,' Bellatrix told it angerly. Making it shut up immediately.

But it had been kinda right, she could go over there. 'there are the notes,' she realised, 'I could talk about her about those. That would be professional. It would even being the same direction of being helpful.'

Deciding that she was completely within her position as a teacher, Bellatrix slammed the coffee back. it burned horribly, but not something a spell couldn't dull to an almost unnotably sting. She would have to take a look at it later but for now it would be alright.

Pulling her chair back she got up and started walking around the table. Trying to keep her eyes on miss granger. She would be almost successful if there wasn't that dammed pillar in the way. Passing by the short part of the of the table she quickly darted out behind the pillar to see.

Miss Granger had stood up. During the time that she had been debating this dumb plan she had finished her breakfast. She doubted even if she had been noticed. Her style of clothing didn't really stand out in a room. Or a great hall where there where huge shadows hanging over everything. It would have surprised her if anyone would have noticed her there.

Seeing the girl walk away from her something happened. Bellatrix couldn't really describe it. It was like there was something in her internal workings that was pulled. Like a hook was put in her flesh and something had pulled it really hard.

It was painful to watch the girl walk, every step being away from her. Her, Bellatrix Black the eldest of the oldest line of the most ancient house of black, she who was the most powerful witch of a generation.

Why was the girl walking away from her.

Getting up from the table, Hermione wondered if Mcgonnagle was going to be taking the class through the process of dual transmutation spells. Like water in a wooden bucket to wine in a glass bottle. It was all just a matter of precision. But it was also a bit tricky when you needed to move matter from a solid to a liquid and visa versa in a single spell.

She had managed it barley ones, and that had been under supervision of Mcgonnagle herself. Outside of her it had been as elusive a spell as she had ever encountered.

Gathering her things she looked at the entrance door, she was earlier done than usual. Normally at this point some people would have strolled into the great hall for breakfast. Those where the early risers of the school. Not as early as her or Neville but still earlier than most other students.

Walking past the fireplaces she warmed herself up against them. Despite it still being summer the castle was like a freezer. Once you walk inside it would just stay cold. No matter the weather it was outside of the castle.


	11. What she did all day

When Hermione showed up for her first lesson of the day she settled in in one of the middle rows. Taking a whole table for herself. It was not that she needed to, but taking notes would be more useful when she didn't have to shove one of the guys out of the way.

Professor Flitwick walked in as the last bell of the hour sounded. Seemingly a bit out of breath, he was heaving at his desk before he climbed the chair. He pulled out his wand and started drawing the instructions on the board, it was about some charm that she had already seen. Complicated but manageable she had found.

"If everyone would please focus on the front…" he started to say as she started to daydream. It didn't happen often, but she had noticed now that she had finished most curriculums early she was doing it more and more. It might just be her mind telling her that it needs to be engaged or it would go off on its own adventure.

And for now they had all been nice. Showing her the wonders of what magic could do during adventures. Particularly she would take stories from her youth and add in magic where it could be applied. Around the world in eighty days was quickly fixed, you just apparated from place to place and you could just do that entire story in a couple of weeks. Getting across the oceans would be the most difficult part.

Phineas Fog would have been a wizard though, or Jean Passepartout could have been. She had played out both stories anyway. In the one where Phineas is the wizard it became a very stern novel, where they didn't mess about. The whole trip would take less than ten days, leaving out of London to Calais by the way of apparition. Passepartout would be doing side apparating here. He wouldn't be used to this form of travel and be sick for the entire night that they would be taking the train.

Obviously Phineas would be sleeping on that train. He might be a wizard but he wasn't going to be sleeping in an uncomfortable bed. Passepartout however would be spending the night in one of the second class carriages. Feeling ill and sorry for himself that he had agreed to this stupid job, with it's stupid complications. The next day, he would convince Phineas to just take the train to Brindisi and there to take the portkey that connect Italy to Suez. Ones where they would be using apparating to quickly dart across the Arabian sub-continent. Moving from side to side in a matter of hours. Ones where they would be taking a second portkey to Bombay, to satisfy the gentlemen that had put them on this wager.

One's in the empire again, Phineas would be enjoying the luxuries that he was afforded while on the train to Calcutta. This time to there was no second class to downgrade his assistant to so Passepartout was allowed to stay in his quarters. They would be magickly enlarged as a gentlemen of his status wouldn't be caught dead in a small room to travel in.

Again they didn't expedite the process on the trails at all, Phineas would occasionally stroll over to the locomotive to duplicated the coal that they where using as fuel. And topping off the water that the engine was running on. All by all it was not a difficult journey to get there. Everything was smooth sailing from that point on.

They would get off there and teleport across the Chinese empire till they reached the British territory of Hong Kong. There they would quickly stamp of their passports before leaving through a portkey to the Chinese mainland's closes connection to japan. Another portkey would be used to get to Yokohama and further on a boat that could carry them to the Americans. While on the boat they would have time to relax, even learn some new spells. Passepartout would get some pointers where the French magical education system might have missed a couple of marks. And in return he would show Phineas how to use more food related spells.

The French weren't for nothing the best at making their food. The cuisine that the French magical world produced was beyond divine in nature. It couldn't be beat. On the last week of the boat trip Phineas was able to make a simple meal just using the magic that was at his fingertips. It wasn't the best meal but it was a decent first try he would have to admit. It would take a lifetime just to get the technique down to get started. That Phineas had managed to do it on a ship in the middle of the pacific was somewhat extraordinary.

Arriving in San Francisco, they one's again got a stamp on their passports and carried on till they hit up one of the trains that was just leaving for the cross America trip. Abort the train they met up with a couple of other tourists, them being from the newly independent nation of Canada. While it was still under the same government as the rest of the empire if they where speaking on magical societies, but the muggle part had indeed broken a bit further away from the old empire, but it kept it's good times as they were. Unlike the united states had done a bit earlier. Even the magical community had given up on the monarch and had elected a president. Putting the British entirely to the side in making decisions.

The train ride was also pleasant, though a bit long. At one point Passepartout had asked if Phineas couldn't just Apparated them to the other side of the continent as they had done earlier on the Arabian continent. He had told that he shouldn't be hurrying that much. It was a British tour around the world, and that mend that there would be running when walking would just suffice.

Passepartout would have to accept that as the train made it's way slowly but surely to New York city where they would stay with a couple of friends Phineas had made a bit ago on the train that had carried them to Italy. He had been invited to stay the night if he would have found himself in New York City in the near future. And as barely the second month had passed as they set foot in New York City. He promptly called in his favour and they stayed in all the imaginable riches and comforts. It had been hard to part with that place but they had a wager to win. Saying goodbye to the Spellman sisters, they would board the second and final boat of the journey.

Again here it was just waiting around to get to the other side of the Atlantic. Here Phineas would have asked Passepartout to explain a bit more of the theory behind the way of making magical food. He complied, happy to be distracted from the rough seas that had been turning up the closer they had come to England again. They had surmised that it was an award that was supposed to inconvenience them. It's only real effect was that the boat that would have taken nine days to cross the ocean was now taking ten days. Everything else was just as it had been before. They would arrive in London well on time, leaving Phineas the pleasure to rest a day. It was Saturday after all and to arrive at the club well on time. He would have entered the building as the first person there that morning. Taking a seat on one of the seats that faced away from the door facing the far fireplace in the room. Waiting for everyone to arrive without being noticed he would then reveal himself to them and reap the winnings.

"… and that is how you cast that spell." Professor Flitwick finished his explanation. He was looking around to see who might not have gotten it. She could read from his face that many of her peers where having trouble with the complicated explanation. It was something that should be done rather than explained she reasoned when Professor Flitwick started running round to answer basic questions. For a few moments she wondered if she should be showing how it was done.

But she refrained herself from doing that. It was not her place to teach this class. When she would inviably mentor a couple of these students, she would get plenty of opportunities to cast it as an example. It was a small blessing in disguise that she would be teaching this to the others. Not only would they be getting better she would get experience in the spell. A true win-win situation.

"Professor Flitwick could I be excused for a moment?" she asked after having packed her books already. She didn't want to wait around for the class to finish. It was nicer to walk to lunch in the relative calmed of the castle while it was day, than during the rush of everyone wanting to get food in them.

"Sure, go right ahead Miss Granger," he told her, waving his wand to the door. He was currently trying to free Ronald from the desk that he had managed to shift himself into. It was not painful from what he was doing, more incontinent of a problem that he was having.

Closing the door behind herself she noticed the silent nature of the castle, in just these few moments she could swear that a pin could be heard falling. But then her hearing normalised to the sounds that the castle was making. In the distance there were the rumblings of the ovens that the elves where using to make the food for later. The ticking of the giant clock was faintly hearable. It was very quiet but still a noticeable tick every second. She slowly walked back to the great hall, passing the classroom where she knew Professor Black was currently teaching some of the first years. It was a good system that she had gotten through, teaching every year day by day. First one half of the year in the morning and the others later in the day. So that she didn't need to prepare two different years lessons on the same day.

Lingering for a moment she listened in on what Professor Black was teaching these first years. It was too early for them to actually be show any dark magic till their second year. Now it was more of a show and tell hour in which the Professor would take a magical creature with dark undertones and show them to the students. It was mostly harmless stuff, like garden trolls, pixies and the like. Nothing dangerous.

From where she was standing in the hallway she could follow along with what was being said barley. Not only where the doors very good at keeping sound out when they needed to be. They also did a magnificent job keeping all of it inside of the room.

Giving up after a moment Hermione walked down the stairs that lead to the grand staircase. It was from there that she could take a more or less straight line to lunch. A few portrait seemed to be abandoned on the side of the staircase, which wasn't that unusual. The people in them loved to go and see the places that could be seen from other portraits. But it was unusual to see so many of them abandoned, especial during the day. Most of the visits where done during the night when no one could see them abandoned. It was quite curious, she thought as she looked them over again.

All of them where empty all the way down to the hallway that lead to the great hall. It was all a bit mysterious. Where had all of them gone? It wasn't like it was a special day or so, not one reason could be thought of that the portraits would be abandoned in the day.

Arriving on the landing at the bottom of the stairs she looked at the couple of paintings that had been hung here. Also empty, not a single person was in them. She could have sworn the one at the back hurried just out of frame. But now she was left with backgrounds and landscapes.

She couldn't figure out what might have caused that. It wasn't like she had always noticed the figures that were on the paintings. But now that they were absent it was really a lot more dull in the hallways. Making her way to the great hall she was greeted by Ginny and Luna. They had come in from the Hogwarts greenhouses, it was a short walk from them to the great hall.

"Hermione, are you feeling okay?" Luna asked her as they walked to the favoured place at the Gryffindor table. Hermione taking the back side, facing into the hall and Luna and Ginny taking the other side.

"I feel like I am," she said truthfully feeling like she was completely in order, but apparently Luna was thinking differently about it.

"Are you sure, the Nargles that hare now hanging around your head are almost with so many I can barely see your face. It is being covered almost completely." Luna said leaning a bit over the table.

"Luna, you know that we can't see them right?" she reminded the girl that was hanging half over the table. Taking moments to look through a kind of spectacles. She seemed to be getting more and more concerned when she took them off.

"Ginny could you take a look, I want to be sure that it as many as I think it is." She handed them off to Ginny. Ginny while putting them on gasped. It seemed that the amount that Luna had been describing was of a truly humongous number.

"Hermione, this is stupid the amount that are around you at the moment," she exclaimed. Taking the glasses of for a moment she was comparing the views that the glasses gave her and the one that she had without it. She had fallen silent in what would be a first for the youngest Weasley, now she was just sitting there thinking. "Luna what did you say that they were attracted to again?" she asked her friend after a bit.

"They are mainly attracted to rare information that is very difficult to get a hold of," Luna said. As she looked her in the eyes. she seemed to be looking for that information, curious what the information might be that attracts them to her.

"Luna, I can't tell you what that information might be," Hermione said as Luna was trying to look deeper in her eyes, trying to read what might be inside. As she said that it seemed to disappoint Luna a bit.

"Like even If I wanted, I'm not allowed too by the ministry of magic," she told Luna. It seemed to have worked a bit as she looked away. Now focusing on the portraits that hung in the great hall, it was not that decorated as the other places of the castle. But even here there were a couple of paintings. They were placed between the fireplaces that where there used of heating the hall.

"Did anyone notice that the paintings where empty?" Luna asked her and Ginny as she noticed the strange behaviour. It seemed that the portrait hadn't returned to normal.

"They still empty?" she asked Luna, as she already knew the answer to that question. It seemed that all of them had abandoned ship, or here it would more accurately be known as abandoned frame.

"That is strange," Ginny said looking over to a painting a bit further away and finding it empty too.

"What's strange," Harry asked as he sat down next to her. giving everyone that was sitting at the table a small heart attack. It took a few moments before the three of them where breathing normally again.

"What's happening," Ronald asked as he sat down on the other side of the table. Across from his sister and next to Hermione.

"The portraits are missing their characters." Ginny told him pointing out the paintings that had been hung behind him.

As he looked around he noticed the difference, "Blimpy, they really left those places empty didn't they," he said as he looked back to the group.

Giving lessons to the first years was more like story time with toddlers than anything else. She would tell a story about a bad monster, then get them to tell her what they tough it was. With her then writing on the blackboard what it was, where it lived and what it could do.

They had been far to surprised when she was explaining the myriad of monsters and magical creatures that lived in the magical world. It seemed that almost none of the people that had been handling the development of these children had done an abominable job. None of them were able to identify the garden gnomes. Had none of them ever done any garden work for their parents. It was disheartening that she had needed to put ten hints on the board before anyone of them had even gotten close.

Like she could understand that certain pureblood children would have some trouble with the question, never having to deal with them themselves. But some of the lower blood house must have their children working in the garden, Merlin knows they can't afford the house elf. Still she was a bit miffed about the hints she had needed to put up there. Like after the hint, 'in Gardens' she would have liked to image that they would have gotten it.

But alas these students had been useless, she hoped that the class in the afternoon could provide the answer slightly faster. But with the Hufflepuff, Slytherin combo there was little hope. The Slytherins where all probably spoiled brats and the Hufflepuffs where so 'friendly' that they wouldn't pick up on the hints that she would be putting throughout the story.

But now she had to eat, she wondered for a moment if she should be going back to her room to eat there. or if she would be taking the short walk down to the great hall, where she would slip in eat a bit and then move on with her day. No one would need to be the wiser and she would have eaten.

It was a perfect plan. She could even disguise herself and one of the members of staff could be eating and it would be her. thinking longer about it she decided that she would take one of the assistants to madam Pomfrey, he didn't show up to many meals and when he did it had always been for a quick bite. Darting in and out of the great hall.

Yes, he would be easy to impersonate. She just needed to remember the guys name. it was something that started with a D. she just wasn't sure what it was, it might have been David, Dylan, Drake? No those weren't it. It was something else, something like.

"Has anyone seen were Dwight might have gone of too?" someone called in the distance.

That was his name Dwight, she thought as she started walking to the side entrance that was reserved for staff and faculty. There were a couple of build in cabinets that she could walk into and change her appearance.

Taking a couple of moments she became the spitting image of Dwight, cleaning guy. It was easy to copy the way that that guy carried himself. It was like he thought that his promotion was just a day away, always already thinking like he was already in that position.

She just had be arrogant and uncaring about other people's feelings when she talked to them. And just thinking that he would be the most important person in the universe soon. Really all she needed to do was act like she was fourteen again.

Opening the door to the great hall she got flooded by the sound that was inside of the hall, but now she was standing here she couldn't walk back. she had opened the can of worms and wasn't sure how to close it without making it look like a mess.

Taking a first step and then a second one, she eventually made it to the table. Taking the free seat that was still open at the end of the head table. The people had been here for a bit already but it wasn't even halfway through the meal yet, she wouldn't be the last person arriving.

Taking a cup and filling her plate she started to eat, she wasn't sure if the food was just good or the magic of the house elves that had prepared it. nevertheless it was magnificent. One of the best meals she had eaten here.

It wasn't even the food that she normally ordered. They had done a great job, she might needed to let the house elves know that they could be a bit creative with her meals from now on. They did their best with this so they could probably make her meals without fucking it up too badly.

Looking over to the Gryffindor table she found her mentee sitting in the middle around the same place as she had been earlier that morning. Now though she had been joined by a couple of redheads, who could only be the remaining Weasley descendants that still roamed the castle halls. There was also a dark haired boy sitting to the side of the gingers, must be that Potter boy that had been active during the last lesson of the seventh year.

He was a decent lad she had concluded, not as smart as miss granger in the way of knowledge but he was almost flawless at casting the spells that she would ask of him. A great auror in training she predicted.

Across from him the brown-haired boy had just taken a seat, he had seemingly come from a different part of the castle than the rest of them. That meant that either, he was taking a different course of study or was in a different year than the others.

She wanted to turn to her side and inform about her students before she stopped herself. Don't get attached and don't find out any details that might be applied to them.

She sat back in her seat and kept on eating like she had seen Dwight do when he was just grabbing a bite to eat. She was well aware that she had already been sitting here for longer than she had ever seen him eat. But it was so good that she couldn't just leave it standing here. So she just kept on eating till she had almost finished someone else came into the hall on the other side of the head table.

It was the real Dwight that had come in to get a quick bite to eat before carrying on with his job. As he looked over the table, Bellatrix was very aware of how she looked right now. She looked over at the door before walking over to it. not looking back to see if someone had noticed the double appearance of the Dwight's. As she reached for the door no one had caught on so, she was in the clear luckily. Back in the hallway, she transformed herself back to her usual appearance and walked back to the classroom to prepare it for the second lessons.

It was not a lot that needed to be prepared, she would just make sure that her notes on the board had been disappeared out of sight from the other students. There was no way that the students would be thinking of the garden gnome anyway. She seen it first-hand now.

Recalling the lesson she could have guessed how the Gryffindors would have acted during her lesson to a tee, they where loud and would guess often and with no worry of the consequences. She had enjoyed it thoroughly when she had been able to take away twenty points from the house when it was clear that they were just going down the list of creatures in the back of the book. Guessing was permitted in this class as long as it was within good conscious.

The Ravenclaws had been a bit more smart about the whole thing, they would just call out the names of various creatures but they made it seem more random, but they also where just calling off the entire list of creature eventual. She had only taken fifteen points off the house as they had not taken the dumb approach of calling them in alphabetic order.

In the end she had given them the answers on her own at the end of the lesson was approaching and she had been hunger, a problem she currently wasn't experimenting anymore. Now she was more filled than she had been in a long while, the corset that she was wearing was slightly protesting against the amount of food but she was okay with it at the moment. Now she had the entire, midday to be relaxed for the afternoon lessons.


	12. What we can learn from books

Hermione's afternoon was quickly over, the lessons that where given then didn't really apply to her. She had done the NEWTS last year so she had been given a free period to fill in as she wishes. The library was empty so she could work without being interrupt for the next couple of hours.

The full and comprehensive history of the parts unwritten, was a big book to read trough. When she had skimmed over the couple of chapters yesterday she had noted down a couple of places that could have any indication to horcruxes or similar pieces of magic. Now she just needed to read the actual chapters and make sure that there was actual information in here. It might not be censored but it also might not be done very well.

The first chapter that she was looking at was mostly about the use of magic in the lengthening of lifespans. A certain forgotten wizard had discovered that if one piece of a soul would be on earth it wouldn't been able to go beyond the vail. He had been able to lengthen his lifespan indefinitely. He might be the first person that had created a horcrux, but he made the mistake of putting that piece of his soul in the body of a mortal being.

He eventually died prematurely when his creature was crushed by a rock without his knowledge. And he was hit by a stray spell. It had been a more disappointing ending than what he had expected from his life plan. He had been buried in a small village where he died when no one had claimed his body. It was said that there were a shimmer of a ghost that haunted the grounds.

Hermione pondered for a moment if it would be a good use of time to travel there and try to speak to him first hand. But the book said the there was little information on the spirit to be speaking to anyone. It would probably be a waste of time. But for the interest of time she looked where he was buried. Qazim Pali, Albania a place that she hadn't heard of before. But she had seen an atlas in the library before. She had used one of them of the United Kingdom when there was some discussion where the Scottish border was compared to where it was on the map. They had come to the conclusion that the English had moved the border on the map almost fifty miles north. Costing the Scottish a lot of land.

But that didn't matter much to her now. Now she could bust out the continental atlas. A book that was much thicker than the United Kingdom one. she carried it form it's place on the shelve all the way to where she had made her working bureau. Placing it on top of the other pieces of research. She turned through the index till she hit Albania. There it started to become a bit more difficult. The towns that the kingdom of Albania had contained nearly a thousand different towns.

But eventually she reached the pages that gave the shifting of the names of the different towns from then till now. Some of them only had a couple but there had been some that had gone trough at least twenty different names. Most of the having no real relations to one another. She wondered if the towns had gone trough violent events resulting in the change of name.

But she had been lucky Qazim Pali seemed to have been spared from the whole name problem. It had been since the beginning of the written history that it had been named that. And it hadn't changed, it was a seaside town. Always been.

Seeing it on the map she wondered what it was like being there. it was in the Mediterranean basin. The weather would have been nice all year round she imagined. The last time she had been at the Mediterranean sea was during the summer after her second year. Her parents had gotten an invitation of friends and had taken her with them.

It had been a wonderful vacation, getting to see what beach culture actually should look like was eye-opening to her. She had of course gone to the beach in the United Kingdom. But there is had always been the underlaying cold that was always present on the island. But there in the south of France it had been warm. Not only from the shining sun, but also the wind was warmer than she was used too.

Looking back to the map she wondered if it would be a complete shot in the void if she would ask Professor Black to organise a trip down there. It might be a long shot but she could always try it. 'An opportunity not taken would be regretted forever,' she reasoned as she wrote down a note to ask Professor Black for it.

She wondered if the Professor would stay in her usual outfit, the long-sleeved black dress would definably stand out from the other people if they where on the beach there. She shucked a little when she though about it. It was truly a funny sight.

Leaving the atlas be, she summoned The full and comprehensive history of the parts unwritten out form under the pile of books and shrunk it again. She couldn't risk it being discovered by someone that didn't have the clearance to read it. The entire punishment would be handed out to her, no excuse would be heard as it was her responsibility to keep the contends secret from the wider magical world.

Seeing the mess she left behind, even for a moment she felt a bit ashamed. It was not in her nature that to be that messy, but the research was creating a monster out of her. But she needed a break of the long time she had been sitting still. She needed to move her legs a bit as they had gone to sleep, the tingle was felt in them. It was annoying to feel and even more when it didn't what to go away when she was moving it around.

'These bloody idiots,' Bellatrix thought when her disappointment in her students reached a whole new low. It had been almost three hours and they were still guessing what creature she had described an hour ago. She had taken to tallying the dumb answers they had given, at the moment the Hufflepuffs had given her forty two dumb ones and Slytherin was not doing much better at thirty nine.

"I will not give you any more hints but know that any answer that you will give from now will lose your house two points each!" she called out over the loud class that she was supposed to be teaching. But she had given up on that a few minutes ago. She had started to describe them all as idiots in her mind since the start of the lesson.

The greatest moment of stupid had happened when her ears had been greeted by the guess that it might be a vampire. She had taken a lot of time to calm herself down and not just to get up and slap the boy round the face.

But after three minutes of silence and the seething anger that had come along with that the class had shut up. She could feel the fear that now lived in all of them. She had slowly stood up and waited for them to ask the question. It was an easy one that would show that they didn't know anything about what might be going on.

Then one of the Slytherin students had been brave enough to ask the question, "Professor Black is something wrong?"

It might have been a bit mean but she needed her fun from time to time. It had only taken her about five minutes to tell them what was wrong with them. They had gotten her anger she though, but they had gotten it. they spend the next couple of minutes going tough the book that she had required them to read before the lesson, but none of them had bothered.

It wasn't really a problem but the common sense that she expected from them was just gone. Not a single one of them was looking towards the future with any real plan, just kinda coasting till they made it.

She looked out over the collected student body that was now discussing what it might be. She looked and hoped that the bell would ring soon, she wasn't going to let the idiots go early they didn't deserve that from her. no she would stay there as long as humanly possible. Or till the bell would release them.

She wondered if the house elves could go out and get her some hard liquor to drink her sorrows away. It was only Monday but she was in need of a pick me up, or more like pick me up and put me in a bed. The seconds moved so tantalizingly slowly that she just wanted to go and speed it along.

But then the sweet sounds of relieve she heard as the bells started to ring slowly. She was quite close to magickly hexing them out of the room. But she didn't need to as they all picked up their books and halfway ran out of the room.

Now she could live in some peace and quiet in her classroom. It was silent a stark contrast from what happened before. She was now sitting back in her chair and pointing her wand to the door she made it slam closed. Now she was sealed in here and she liked it. Her house elf could come and fetch her when she wanted to, there was no money in the world that would get her to move around again. she was now in a state of absolute zen nothing was going to interrupt her evening from this point onwards. Just her, a glass of expensive alcohol and good food was in her future.

Hermione's evening was going great the book had some actual references to the objects that she was trying to study. It was no longer something as abstract that she would have to guess about with references and footnotes that pointed to books that had been destroyed a long time.

For now she was trying to figure out how she was going to pitch to Professor Black that she wanted to take a trip to Albania. More precisely to a beach town where she wanted to speak to a spirit that hadn't communicated ones on record about something that might have been his most dramatic event in his life.

There would be no guarantee that it would be useful at all. But on the other hand, she wanted to try. She wanted to meet at least a part of the person that had started this entire process. There was such a chance to learn from this. She really couldn't see how this would be denied.

Except in the parts where she was asking to take a leave from school and spend it on the beach at the Mediterranean basin, in summer. Because despite being in the spirit of research it could be seen as taking advantage of the situation. She would probably refuse to even entertain the idea then. But it would never hurt to ask.

Putting her pen where her mouth was, starting to write the message in which she was asking permission to go there. Even dropping in at the end of it that she could join her in the name of research. It was a poor attempt of sweetening the deal. As it would be her that would need to secure the funding for the expedition.

With the ink still being wet, she called of the house elf. He appeared momentarily taking the letter and assuring her that Mistress Black would see it at her earliest convenience. Telling him goodnight before he popped back out of her study place up in the Gryffindor's tower. She was done for the evening, needing to clear her head from the very difficult matter that she had absorbed out of the book.

Descending the stairs the decided to forgo the route straight to her bed, looking further down into the common room. Seeing if there was anything exiting that was happening that evening. To her surprise she saw that the majority of the house was sitting on the sofa's and the cushions, and just straight up on the floor. Looking out over the crowd of people she recognised Harry. He was sitting on one of the leather chairs with Ginny on his lap. he himself seemed to be enjoying himself, watching what was happening and supporting his girlfriend unconditionally.

"Thomas I'll give you one chance to redeem yourself." She treated Dean Thomas as she clanked over to him. He didn't seem to be as bothered by it. holding a hand of cards in his hands, he only looked over to lock eyes and throwing a seven on the pile.

"Thomas I will fucking skin you!" Ginny yelled out, she could see that Harry had some trouble keeping her seated. Dean was lucky that Ginny wasn't reaching for her wand at the moment. She could do some mean hexes that could really rattle his bones if she wanted too.

"Ginevra," Dean started innocent, although it was difficult to take him serious as he was smiling so wickedly. If it had been possibly his head would have been split in two. "If you would be so kind," He held his hand out expectedly.

"Dean, know that I will make your life hell," She continued on her tirade. It was a sight to behold, eventually Ginny took his cards. Exchanging them for her own. "I hope that you die a violent death," she muttered as she looked them over.

"I would say the opposite for you," Dean said as he looked over the card and showed them to Seamus who was sitting behind him. There was a small symphony of whistle that could be heard as they saw the cards that Ginny had been holding.

"Those are some top cards," someone said from the back benches.

"Please, Luna it is your turn," Dean Thomas said nudging her.

"Oh is it my turn already?," Hermione heard her say as she made her way trough the masses till she could sit to the side of Harry. One of the first years had offered her a seat. She would have tried to refuse but she was tired and had no patience for standing.

"Harry what's happening?" she said leaning over so she could catch Harrys attention. He was still holding Ginny as he looked over.

"Oh, hey Hermione, where have you been?" He said as he saw her sitting next to him.

"I've been working on something," she said hoping that that would be enough to stop any more questions about what her project. She wasn't allowed to discuss the contends of book she was studying, so she was talking all the procurations by just not discussing it at all. "So what is happening here?"

"One of the first years brought this muggle game with is, you might know it?" he asked, looking over to her. When she shrugged he continued, "So they brought in 'UNO' - I believe they called it – and where playing it in the corner. But every few minutes we could see them yelling at each other and that got Ron's attention. We were playing wizard chess and he couldn't concentrate on his moves every times they were yelling. So when I checkmated him for the second time in a row he went over there.

Hermione though back to Ron's temper and was not that surprised that he would have acted like that. "What did he do when he got there," she asked Harry.

"Well it was a bit loud at the beginning, he scared the children good and they were too shocked to say anything back to him. But when they could say anything back to him; they explained what they were playing." Harry told her, looking over to Ron who was now being annoyingly pulling new cards from the tower of cards.

Hermione and Harry looked over as he pulled not one, not two, not even three or four, but nine cards where pulled from the stack before he could place a card down. He was looking happy about what he was about to play. "Dean," he announced in a much to happy tone for what had just happened. Dean was looking less happy about it his face fell as soon as he saw Ronald hold up the card. "I would like to have your cards," he said as he slammed down the seven on the stack. The entire crowd let out a collective 'oof' as he took the deck that had belonged to his sister and was then handed to Dean and now it was Ronald's hand.

Now he was under the scrutiny of his own sister as he took the cards in his hands. He was now in possession of only three more cards. Looking over to where Ginny was holding her cards she was already looking focused over to a single card in her hand. When his turn ended she quickly threw down the zero card and looked at all the people on the table. "Everyone move them over clockwise," she said looking all of them in the eyes, as she received her own hand back as she handed off the big bundle of cards to Dean Thomas. She seemed to be satisfied holding the lowest amount of cards in her hands.

Harry looked over to her, 'I'm not sure what is happening but they seem to be having a fun time," he said as he motioned to the crowd that had gathered in the common room.

"I suppose that they do," Hermione said, summoning some chips to eat when she was sitting there. If she was going to it while having something to munch on. Harry reached over the bowl and they shared it for the remainder of the evening. Hermione was surprised to find out when Ginny won the round and they started counting points. When it seemed that Ginny had played about a hundred twenty seven points she had though that was defiantly going to win.

But when they noted it down on a piece of paper she saw that they were playing to a thousand points. And so far only Dean and Ginny had gotten any points. Ginny was about forty nine points ahead of him. It was bound to be a long night she concluded, but she didn't mind it that much. Spending the night with friends playing a dumb game was just what she needed to relax from her continues studying and working none stop.

Her evening had been very quiet so far. Getting the house elves to get her some liquor was easier than she had though. Apparently it was instructed to service all the faculty with an no questions asked. When she realised that she had quickly improved her quarters considerably. She had modified the two rooms that she had been given to a grand apartment. Now she had at least room to move around in. she could choice which of the two bedrooms she had requested.

She didn't need it, but it was nice to have. You never know when you wanted to entertain some guests for a long evening. She didn't want to tell them that she couldn't host them somewhere. The wine 'cellar' was also a nice addition. It was a blessing that those elves could preform true duplication on food and drinking items.

When they had been done her own personal elf had popped back to her which was strange she hadn't called for him. It became a bit clearer when he handed her a letter from miss granger.

Reading it over she first dismissed the notion what she was asking. She couldn't reasonably expect that someone would free up budget to house a single student and teacher on a trip abroad to Albania. No she couldn't feasibly get this trough the budgetary commission that was looking after the schools finances.

'But have you tried?' a voice called out, 'you where saying that you needed a break a couple of hours ago.' It reminded her. That voice was most of the time quite annoying but now it was actually right. She had needed a break after the complete stupidity of the first years earlier. She had actually already lost hope in any good moments during the week.

Thinking over the implications that a trip abroad would bring she started weighing the pros versus the cons. On the pro side, she wouldn't have to deal with her students anymore, her class could be taught by a couple of different Professors if needed, it was also in Albania where she hadn't been during her previous trips overseas. On the con side she would have to get to know that Hermione Granger, there was the close proximity to her students that she would have to considered.

It was a difficult choice to go though. Eventually she decided that she would put in a request and see what might happened when it would hit the wall of paperwork that would defiantly stop this entire process. It was always a process of long breath before anything would be realised she reasoned. No fault in putting up the question she thought as she wrote a small note to Headmaster Dumbledore as an official inquiry into the idea of taking miss Granger all the way over to Albania.

She had no real hope for what might come out of it. But if nothing else she could look forward to a potential vacation from this castle and her students. It was the least she could do.


	13. The road to Albania

How she had even gotten this through the commission was beyond her. Her application was only submitted a couple,e of days ago and now she was standing at the Hogsmeade station. Her trunk in hand and a student in tow she was now underway to the south coast of Europe. It was still inexplicably to her that she had gotten permission to take the girl there. speaking of the girl, where was she, she asked herself as she looked out over the platform. They agreed to meet here before the train would arrive here.

She was maybe a bit early for that but she liked being punctual. To a fault really, she had gotten up a couple of hours early to check if all of her stuff was with her. It had taken her about fifteen minutes going through it and throwing it first out of her trunk and then nine more to stuff it back into it. she was certain that she wasn't missing out on anything that she might want to take with her.

Looking around again she muttered, "where is she keeping herself?" how difficult was it to arrive on time at a place that was previously discussed. Looking at the clock above the platform she saw that it was still about ten minutes before the official time they had discussed to meet. Still, she could expect some kind of punctuality from every party involved in the travel plans that were arranged for them.

They would be taking the train out of Hogsmeade to London. There they would be taking a portkey to the cliffs of Dover. Arriving there they would be meeting with the French authorities to request access to the French territory. If all went well there they would be on their way with some more portkeys crossing from the north side of the continent down to the south. There they would be Apparating along the coast till they hit the Italian border. There they would be going through customs again till they were able to travel to the far side of Italy before they would cross the sea into Albania via portkey. That last time it would be without the customs as there was no stable magical government ruling over it at the moment or even in the last century.

But for now, they just needed to start on the leg to London. If only the train would show up soon that she could take a seat in one of the cabins and read. It had been only three days since she had last been able to do that.

A sound in the distance perked her ears as the Hogwarts express made it's way across the corner and pulled into Hogsmeade station. It looked as magnificent as it had always done, it's read polished surface that always seemed to have just gotten a new coat of paint. It blew out the last of its steam before coming to a halt. Still distracted by the arrival of her the first way of travel she hadn't noticed the girl arriving at the platform.

"Morning, Professor Black," she said surprising her. It took a lot of her not to just jump up in the air and yelp. But that would be unbecoming of a person in her position.

"Miss Granger, It's nice to see that you could make it," she said checking the time. 'still two minutes early,' she realised, being taken the chance to tell her off for being late.

"Right on time," the girl answered letting go of her trunk. It let out a louder than expected thud. Inside of it, there seemed to be a huge amount of items falling and crashing into each other. Looking concerned at the container, she cocked her eyebrow curiously.

"Is everything alright in there?" she asked hesitantly. Still looking at the trunk that was still sounding like there was a small shop that was being turned on its head.

"Yeah it's alright in there," the girl said quite unfazed. It was like she had gone through all this before. Not even a few times but countless times in the past, "I will just cast repair and fix it when I open it again. But as long as it stays closed it is fine."

"That's fine then," Bellatrix Black said as she looked over to the train. "Care to get on?" she asked as she made her way to over to one of the doors of the carriages.

"Let's go," Hermione Granger said as she levitated both of the trunks from the ground and through the open door that Professor Black held open. She let her pass by before closing the door behind herself. It was to be a long journey, that they would have to go on. Getting off on the right foot was a necessity. You couldn't spend a couple of days with someone without there being some kind of emotions building up.

Getting into the train she started off walking towards the front. Already planning the most efficient route towards the exit in London before they even left from Hogsmeade. She could hear that miss Granger was trailing behind her. Probably wanting to be seated close by so they could coordinate the route before splitting ways in the train again. It was maybe her intention to take her halfway across the continent. It still wasn't her intention to get to know any of her students, she kept telling herself. 'To be honest, this whole trip is just a way of getting to know her,' she realised. Giving pause to that thought for a moment she looked over her shoulder. There she saw Miss Granger walking along and offering her a small smile, she looked back to in front of her. There was that feeling again, that small little feeling in the pit of her stomach, she still couldn't really place what it was. But it was different.

Opening up the next compartments she saw that it was one of the bigger ones. She would fit in here with easy. It looked like it was made for at least seven more people. There was even a real table in between the seats. The luxury that was in these compartments was not much but they did have.

Taking a seat that faced the front of the train. Hermione took the one on the opposite side. Quickly levitating the trunks to the overhead storages she took out a book to read. 'This hadn't been the plan,' she realised. 'They were supposed to be spending the time apart from one another.' She almost said something about it when the train started moving already. It was now a bit more difficult to banish her from the cabin. If it becomes a problem she would just have her move later. For now, she was fine.

It was fine. Despite that little feeling deep down.

It was a long train ride to London, Hermione would need to fill her time well. But for now, she was relaxing. There was still about eight hours of a train ride left to go. She could relax and read something for the road. She had packed a few muggle novels that she had picked up a while ago in muggle London, the last time she had gone to Diagon ally. They had looked nice in the Barnes and Noble windowfront. She had been lured inside of the place that she had sworn to avoid. There had been so much money that had been handed to that store in her childhood. But now she was older and she could restrain herself, she had trough as she walked passed the threshold.

It had taken her about nine minutes before she had taken her first new book out of the bookcase. That had been her first mistake, she had been lured into a false sense of security. The story looked a lot like a library, that was what really got her. Because she could take out as much books as she wanted but now she couldn't take them with her without paying for them.

At her first book, she had noticed the pull but had ignored, but when she had started to look at her seventh book she was aware of it. she had been lured in with the promise of good books and that was answered, but now she had to deal with the consequences of her actions. She was now walking around to deal with a Buch of books that she didn't have the money to pay for all of them.

She had to put them down on one to the side tables and had looked them over. Two of them where new versions of the book that she knew that her parents owned already. So they where out, if she wanted to read them she just had to look trough her parents personal library. There was a book about some kind of magical world that was now a bit out of date. She had spend the last seven years living the magical part on her own. So she could discard that one. the other four where a couple of books written by an Australian writer named Asynca. It was about an adventurer and her friend that was a reporter whom documented the treasurer hunt. It all seemed to be very lovely. There was even a blurb on the back about another couple of books by the same author. It all seemed to be interesting to her, so those books stayed in the pile.

The last two where books that she could probably keep as gifts to her parents. They looked fun to read but they were also very much up their ally in the kind of story that they liked.

So that was what she approached the counter with, four books that she intended to buy, no more or no less. It was a solid plan, she had even gotten the right amount of money out when she stood there. Not wanting to keep the clerk too busy with her interruption.

"What can I do for you?" she had asked, noticing her after a moment.

"I would like to Purchase these books."

She had looked at them and had then done something that she hadn't anticipated, "Oh, alright then. Because we are having a clearing week everything is half off at the moment," she had told her. Making her stressed out, it wasn't the right amount of money that she had in her hands. That wasn't a big problem it was just unexpected to her.

"I see, it's half off on all of them?" she said thinking about the books she had left behind. She could still walk over and get them too, it would even be cheaper than she had intended with them too. But she had already decided that she was only going to get these four, she had no need for the others too.

Thinking back to that Hermione smiled contently, the story that she had acquired at that day was so sweet and at the same moment cool that she was just happy to have know it. Lara and Sam where really couples goals to be attained. They had gone trough so much and still in the end they were together, happy to be with one another.

Professor Black must have noticed that she had been smiling excessively while reading it because she was looking suspiciously in her direction. It was strange to see her professor so intrigued in something. Most of the time that she was striding around the school there was an air of importance that was difficult to challenge. Not that she wanted to do that, but is was fun to have some variation in the otherwise very self-centred witch. She wondered what she was reading on her end of the compartment. She couldn't read the spine from where she was sitting but she couldn't image that Professor Black had a bad taste in books.

"What you reading?" she asked her professor when they passed a particularly large body of water. The view was idyllic then and both her and Professor Black looked out and just looked out over nature, temporarily distracted from the question at hand. It was just nice to sit there and experience nature together. But a moment couldn't last forever and this moment was running on it's last legs when they approached the tunnel that would lead them to the English country side.

The sudden difference in view from green nature to a rapid repeating of grey pillars in a dark tunnel made her jump a little bit. She had been so focused on the view that she hadn't seen it coming. Professor Black didn't fair that much better she also shocked a little bit when the, 'tump' of the train entering the tunnel hit them. She shook the feeling of off her in quite a visibly fashion. Professor black took a moment to regain her composure before she entertained the question given to her.

"Oh, this book?" she held it up to Hermione could read the cover, 'Entagled by Orbis Alas' she could see what was written there. As she had taken a good look, Professor Black took it back into the position that it had been in when she had been reading it moments before.

Hermione looked out over the green sprawling hills of the countryside and nodded of a little bit after a while. The very repetitive sound of the train on the rails kinda rocked her to sleep. The las that she saw was Professor Black glancing over her book, she couldn't see where mount but she could have sworn that it was a smile that was hidden behind it.

London was a lot, Bellatrix concluded. They had just gotten of at platform 9 and three quarters. And now they were preparing to enter muggle London to get to the ministry, they had to pick up their visas to travel to France and beyond. The paperwork alone had taken the house elves in the department several working days to finish in time for them to leave for the continent. But they first had to get there.

Shrinking their trunks they walked through the barrier, first Hermione and then herself. She couldn't just apparate them both to the ministry from where they were standing on the platform. There had been measures taken that no one could just apparate on that platform. It had been done for the safety of the children during the reign of Grindelwald, attempted reign at least. He didn't get a foothold on the British isles. But there had been a viable treat to the safety of the children that would gather here before leaving for school. A thinktank had declared it a possible target for the forces of Grindelwald to hit as they might storm the continent in late August, to early September of nineteen thirty nine. They eventually never came that close, but the anti-apparition charm was installed upon the platform.

It just meant that they had to go into muggle London before apparating at the ministries visitors entrance. Walking trough the barrier they entered the busy world of Kings Cross Station. Keeping her distance from the muggles that dwelled around the station, she waited for miss Granger to pass through. It only took a couple of moments before she saw the woozy appearance of her appear next to her, thanks to the charms that kept the barrier muggle free and hidden from sight.

"Come on Granger, we have to be quick," she said wanting to spend as little time in the presence of muggles as possible. It was just in her nature that she didn't want to mix with the lower classes, or here it would be the vermin that had forced their kind into secrecy.

"Professor?" the girl asked her when she started to make a quick escape for the exit. She halted her quick pace so she could catch up to her. Still making a line for the closest exit, she had already prepared a route to a discrete place from where they would apparate to the ministry. It was a good plan, efficient in it's working.

"Well as we are a bit early…" the girl started to say as they she came to a halt at the beginning of her sentence, 'she wouldn't dare,' she though. "…we could just visit London for a bit," miss Granger finished her though.

Standing still in the sea of muggles, she first noticed the absolute massive number of them that were currently walking around and some of them oven close enough to touch. It was like she was standing in a stream of mud that was engulfing her but by a small miracle, she was not getting hit by it. "Granger you can't possible mean that we should stay here with them," she said trough her teeth. Not waving around to show who she mend but it was appeared to all the people in the know. That being her and herself.

"I wasn't saying that we should stay right here," the girl started to paddle back, starting with damage control. But she was not flat-out saying that she didn't want to abandon the muggle world. "I was just saying that we could take a quick bite to eat and maybe see some of the older parts of London along the way."

Bellatrix looked at her with a look of either shock or worry about her sanity. 'Staying in the muggle world to grab a quick bite to eat?' she though. But a part of her was a bit enticed to take the offer. She had seen plenty of the magical quarters that were spread round the city, and had only seen muggle London really in passing or at night when she was flying over it on way to her old job. But by daylight, it was something that she hadn't though she ever wanted to do.

"alright," she said to the girl, "but let's keep it quick."

Whit some fast-food to go Bellatrix and Hermione entered the visitors entrance to the ministry. The old phone booth had seen better days, now there was a bunch of graffiti covering the outside of the box. The inside was however still clean. It looked a bit dishevelled but it was locked to the muggles that might wanted to get inside of it. it was a bit of a tight fit fir the two of them but they could manage. Bellatrix turned to face the phone and dialled six tow four forty-four two hundred and twenty two.

The booth stated to decent with it's signature shock, a practical joke that had been installed so long ago that it now was a permanent feature of the entrance. They made their way past the reception quickly as they had send a message ahead about their appearance at the ministry. They were pointed to the foreign office where their visas were laying waiting.

"Told you we would make it in time," Hermione told the slightly grumpy Professor that she had taken in tow.

"You'd promised less muggles," she retorted, half joking about that.

Before Hermione could retort on any of the charges held against her they were interrupted quite rudely by a clerk that was helping them with the visas. Having just returned from the backroom he had the need of their attention for a bit of the administrative part that couldn't be done remotely.

"So I will need you two to sign your names here," he said after gathering their attention, pointing to a dotted line on the form that was lying before the two of them. After signing it Bellatrix turned immediately to get the argument going again by the click of the tongue.

"What?" she asked the guy as he was pulling the documents back and put a single document in front of her. "What do I have to do with this?" she asked the old wizard that was sitting behind the counter.

"When taking a student out of the country there is a problem with the foreign ministries," he explained, "so to keep the red tape at a minimum we advise people to put down a kind of family relation down, so we can give you a family visa that is accepted by a wider range of Bureaucracies." He muttered on.

"Wait your saying that we need to have a family relation?" Bellatrix asked in shock. Hermione wasn't fairing much better, she had just comprehended what he was saying, "she didn't what to be her professors sister, or worse daughter.'

"Yes, like your wife, girlfriend. Something in that direction. We can't really claim blood relation between the both of you," he said looking both of them in the eye.

Say what you want about the French border wizards, but they were professional to a point. When they had had shown up in dover to get their visa's checked they had been very professional about the relation they had put down between the two of them. Them being a couple wasn't questioned, despite her being less than half as old as Bellatrix was. They had just looked it over checked the papers, held out a hand while looking away to be handed the official bribe to pass through. It was all part of the international political landscape.

The portkey that took them across the channel was a broken bronze crown, to symbolise the fall of the last dynasty of the French monarchs. They had been interlinked with the magical community till the wizards and witches from the countryside had risen up against their oppressors in their magical castles. It was not linked to the simulations revolution in France, but there had been at least two wizards that helped the muggles along, breaking the international statute of wizarding secrecy.

Arriving in France they had been given a stern talking to about the ways that the laws in the British isles differenced from the French mainland. The main difference was that there was less surveillance upon it's citizens. The Magical ministry was more based upon the common sense of its citizens. The main rule of thumb was, 'don't do magic in front of muggles, only at the most extreme of circumstances. Don't attack others without being provoked and just be calm when you travel on the roads.'

Walking out of the entrance to France area they had a couple of options to get to Italy. But most of them went to trough Paris, and Bellatrix wasn't that inclined to go to another city that was filled with muggles. Hermione on the other hand had already looked up a couple of places that they could visit along the way. There was apparently a large library that was based there, containing the knowledge of the old world.

She had been ecstatic when she had read that in the brochure about Paris in the welcome to Paris centre, Bellatrix didn't want to know anything about it. But she had needed to act the part of a girlfriend so she had conceded and booked a portkey that would bring the both of them to the magical quarter of Paris. It was located on the hidden island in the river seine. It was also the place to be to have a wonderful meal, prepared by some of the best chefs in the magical world.

"Can you believe that they just vanished the entire island, Professor Black?" Hermione asked excitedly as they walked along the centuries old cobbled streets that sprawled out across the small island. There where a number of shops that lined the streets, it was a truly magnificent sight so look at the different ways the French had built their own version of Diagon ally.

"Miss granger, let's keep the formalities back at the school if we could," she said as she looked out over the street of shops. There was a multitude of options to chose from. There where the cheap street venders that would sell them some food but there was a risk connected to them. You never knew what the quality would be.

"Alright, I will," Hermione said, "but…" she was stopped in the middle of her sentence, this intrigued Bellatrix a bit.

"But what miss granger?" she asked the girl.

"there is the small problem where I don't know what your first name is miss Black." She answered. It surprised her a bit, while she had never revealed what her name was to the school, or even her students. It did surprise her that they hadn't found who she was by looking it up in the books about the pureblood lines. She had done the research herself one day to see how long it would take for anyone to find out who she might be.

"It's Bellatrix Black," she revealed to her student, it would be an annoying vacation or research trip if the had to keep it super formal all the time.

"Alright then Bellatrix," the girl tried out for the first time, she didn't know why but the way that she said it just left the right to her. it was something unconscious that had picked up on that and had gone, that is something that we like. Even the annoying voice had voiced his support for it in a short message.

"Do you have a place where we are going to eat?" the girl asked when they had passed about the fifth restaurant, and they were quickly running out of road to find one on.

"Don't worry Granger, I have something in mind," Bellatrix said as she was eyeing an old restaurant that her parents had taken her and her sisters to about forty years ago. At that age, her memories had been a bit hazy, but the meal that she had eaten in there had stayed with her for the longest time. And when you are traveling on the expenses of the ministry and Hogwarts you could permit yourself a couple of things that made the quality of life better for yourself.

She looked trough the windows as they started to walk past the building, there were a couple of tables that had been filled but there were plenty of empty ones just sitting empty. They would be seated rather quickly she surmised as she took Hermione's arm and looped hers trough it. "Just remember we are her to celebrate our first month," she told Hermione as she entered the restaurant.

The insides where still like they had been back then. A pitch black sealing from all the smoke the fireplaces had created over the past couple of centuries that the building had been in use. It was now to late to clean it up as it was essentially a part of the building now. Standing in the entrance it didn't take long before a younger witch around Hermione's age had walked up and taken them to their table. It was a booth seat that they now where sitting either side of.

"So, you've been here before?" Hermione asked her as she was looking around, looking if she could see where she had sat all that time ago. She nodded and tried to recall more precisely where she had sat back then. It had been not that close to the fire as the smoke would have damaged the clothes she was wearing at the time. but also still close enough to have made a very good impression on her.

"I was here when my parents last visited the French branch of the Black family, the visit had been over quicker that expected so they had taken us into Paris. At the time it was still more of the medieval feel than it is now," she told the girl as they were waiting for the menus to be handed to them. "Overall the experience was pretty mediocre to bad, that was one of the reasons I wasn't that trilled to come here." She told looking for recognition in her students eyes as she had made it clear earlier that she wasn't in the mood to return to Paris anytime soon.

"I get that now," Hermione said, waiting for a second before continuing as the server was now handing them the menu's, "Thanks, so your saying your aversion of Paris was the feeling it had forty years ago?"

"That's essentially it," Bellatrix answered as she opened the menu, looking it over her eye was stuck on a section that she had loved as a child, 'Chicken Marengo' it was a nationally revered dish that not only was praised for being good it also tasted like it looked. In her eyes, it was one of those meals that you didn't have to eat a lot of the time, but when you did you would enjoy it so much more.

Looking over to her companion, she saw that there was a bit of indecisiveness happening. Hermione had been cursed by a menu filled with foods that all tasted essentially great, but were difficult to chose between. There was no wrong choice on that menu, only ten out of ten meals.

"Hermione, If I could give you a small recommendation," she started but was stopped in her tracks when the girl looked up as soon as her name was called. She was now listening intently. For a moment it felt like she was teaching the girl, the same kind of attention was now looking at her.

"Please Bellatrix," the girl motioned, again saying something that her mind inherently liked. She wasn't sure how or why, but she needed to hear it more. It was a bit unsure how that was gonna happen but now she needed to hear it more.

"The Chicken Marengo is to die for in this place, I would rank it among the best meals I've had in my life," she said trued fully. Half hoping that the girl would also take it and indulge in the same taste as she had. Or if worse comes to wear she didn't like it Bellatrix would have more for herself.

Walking back out of there both her and Hermione where moving rather slowly away from the restaurant. Eventually, they had settled for a three coarse meal that had lasted them till late in the evening. When they had left the building the sky was dark and on the horizon, they could see the last few bits of the solar rays shine bright. They had missed the last portkey that had left to Marseille so they now had to find a place to spend the night till morning.

They had looked round from where they were standing for a place where they could stay. Seeing that there was almost nothing open anymore, Hermione remembered that there was a pub like an establishment down the road where they had started to walk. It had the universal sign of free rooms.

"Bellatrix, I seem to remember that there was a pub down the road," she told her professor, when she saw that Bellatrix didn't know where to go. Which was a first, seeing the capable witch losing the fight of knowledge. It was not that startling, after the long dinner they had had right before.

They had talked about everything and nothing, first Hermione's current school career and then some of the stories that Bellatrix had gone trough in her own time. They discovered that their careers had been similar, studying a lot and getting into trouble when others had been less than reliably to her plans.

It had been nice to have a real connection with her professor, Hermione thought. The fact that by coincidence they shared the same favourite study place in the library. The view from that window was something to be seen. The combination of the waves of the lake, and the still forest that was lining the shore was calming to a point.

Walking slowly over to the start of the French version of Diagon Ally, they saw that there was a bookstore right next to the pub that they would try to stay at. It was closed now, but looking in she was enticed to enter in the morning. "Bellatrix could we look in there tomorrow," she said pointing out the store.

Bellatrix looked over to the store before nodding, "sure, we can look in there tomorrow," she said. "But first we need to sleep," she declared as she pushed open the door, into the tavern. A myriad of voices and sounds came from inside the room. It was louder than she had prepared herself for, she stopped in her track waiting for a second before she acclimated herself to the situation inside.

They walked up to the counter and waited for a second before Bellatrix tapped the bell. A loud ring sounded and almost immediately a lady walked out from behind the curtain.

"Good evening, how can I help you?" the woman said as she smiled pleasantly. She was looking a bit tired as she opened up the entrance book. "We have a couple of rooms left," she looked up at them, "I'm assuming that you are staying in one room?" she asked then, holding her pen over the page waiting for the confirmation.

Hermione took the imitative as she linked her arm with Bellatrix's, "Yeah," she said as she smiled at the woman.

"Alright," she said after she signed that they would be taking a single room, "And I didn't catch your names?" she asked, her pen hovering over an other part of the paper.

"Hermione Granger and Bellatrix Black," Hermione answered for them as she pulled her professor closer. She felt that she had tensed up since she had started to act like they had a closer relation than that of strictly student and teacher.

"Here are your keys," she said as she handed over the keys to the room. Looking over the keys she noticed the number, nine hundred and nineteen, reminiscent of her own birthday, The nineteen of September.

"Have a good evening," the woman said as she walked back to the back of the tavern. Leaving the both of them standing there in the front of the building.

"What the hell was that?" Bellatrix asked as she recovered from what had happened a couple of moments before. She was still tensed up as Hermione released her form her grip.

"What do you mean?" Hemione asked twirling the key in her hand. It was on an old style of key, it contained a bit of magic that bound it to a particular lock in the tavern. That was a way of keeping the people out of rooms they didn't belong in.

"What do you mean? What do you mean?" Bellatrix whispered loudly into her ear as they made their way to one of the stairwells. Their room was situated on the ninth floor of this seemingly two story building. But there would probably be some undetectable expansion charms. Looking up the middle of the stairwell, Hermione saw that here were about fifteen floors above and an additional five below. This establishment could fit almost all the wizards and witches of Paris on its premises. "You know what people who are a couple get as a room in these places?" Bellatrix asked her as they started to make their way up the stair.

Hermione blanked for a second at the question, she had never stayed in a place with someone else as a couple. It would probably be just the same, she thought. The two single beds on either side of the room. Like she had seen every time she had been out and about with friends and needed to stay somewhere.

In silence they ascended the stairs, passing each floor one by one. Well, the silence was a bit of a wide statement, Bellatrix had muttering under hen breath for the last couple of minutes. She had been displeased in a way that Hermione hadn't figured out.

Opening the door to the room, Hermione saw what the problem was. It was clear what Bellatrix been on about when she had been complaining coming up the stairs. The room was similar to those that she had been in before, the small detail that didn't fit that view was the beds, or rather bed that was standing in the middle of the room. It was a big double bed that was covered nicely.

"Oh," Hermione said as Bellatrix walked passed her into the room. She dropped her trunk on the bed and enlarged it so she could get her stuff out of it. she summoned a black sleeping gown out of it before she made her way over to the bathroom that was off to the side.

"I hope that you figure something out." Bellatrix said as she left to change her clothes. Leaving Hermione to stand in the middle of the room. She was unsure of what she wanted to do to solve the problem. She couldn't just destroy the hotels property, no she couldn't do that. She could try to duplicated the bed and have both of them sleep in a double bed but that was one each of them. But the room was too small to fit two of them in it. Time was ticking along quickly and she was not making any progress.

She heard the door opening behind her again as Bellatrix walked out again, in her flattering nightgown. Hermione needed to take a doubletake when she saw her Professor. She still looked like the woman that she had driven in a train for a couple of hours, spent some time in London and had just before spend another hour eating dinner. But the woman that was standing here was one that was relaxed moving round slowly as she made her way back to the bed.

"So no solution?" she asked as she moved the trunk of the side of the bed. Laying down on it, she made no attempted to move or help her with the dilemma was put before her. taking a couple of seconds, Bellatrix opened her eyes again as she padded the spot on the bed besides her, inviting her to join her.

"turn the light's off if you don't mind," Bellatrix asked as Hermione walked round to reach the side of the bed that wasn't occupied. She pointed her wand at the lights and they dimmed immediately. There was still some light coming in from behind the curtains leaving the room not in complete darkens.

Hermione could see Bellatrix laying on her bad on top of the duvet, walking to the edge of the bed. She realised that she still had to go and change before she could go and get into bed. She had made the mistake of sleeping her clothes one to many times. Not wanting to make that mistake again, she turned on her heels and started walking towards the bathroom.

"Were you going?" a tired Bellatrix asked as she heard the girl leave the vicinity of the bed.

"Just gonna put something on to sleep in," Hermione said as she reached for the door handle. Wanting to get this over as soon as possible. Turning the light on in the bathroom, Hermione had the first chance to look herself in the face since she left the castle of Hogwarts earlier that day. She looked tired. Not like it had been a long day sitting on the school benches, more like she had travelled extremely far in a single day. Which she had to be fair, they had come all the way from the Scottish highlands, trough the English county side and across the channel into the French muggle capital.

She had really come a long way, and now she just had to cross the last couple feet to the bed and she could sleep. Right now though she had to get out of her jeans. She had been right to put them on instead the skirts that she wore at Hogwarts. But now she needed to get them off. Peeling them off, she let out a moan of contentment. It really made a difference, she felt as she stepped out of them, now discarded to be collected later.

The next battle that she had to win was that of her blouse that was buttoned up with a million small buttons. Well, a million might be a bit over the top but there were still a lot to deal with. She was half in her mind to just rip them off and repair it later but when that idea came to mind she had already unbuttoned like half of them. A waste of energy to try to rip out of this now, she concluded as it slit off her shoulders.

Reaching out to the small trunk that was placed on top of the counter, she summoned her sleeping shirt that she had been using for a while. It was something that reminded her of home, Hogwarts and beyond. Popping off her bra, she slipped into it and turned round to join her sleeping professor in the bed that she hadn't been able to duplicate.

Opening the door she saw her laying there, now under the duvet that was draped over her form. From the rising and falling of her chest, she surmised that she was now sleeping. Not wanting to disturbed her Hermione walked slowly over the carpeted floor eventually reaching the edge of the bed. Sitting down on the edge she sunk away a bit, making the mattress dip in her direction.

Getting up a bit to pull the duvet out from under herself, she got into bed again. now slaying down completely flat on her back. She looked up at the ceiling, and for the first time in a while, she couldn't see the starts. So she turned to her side.

"Goodnight Bellatrix," she said.

"Goodnight Hermione." Bellatrix said.


	14. Seeing the Mediterranean

Getting out of Paris was easier said than done, they had to get up out of the incredibly comfortable. The sun had risen a considerable amount of hours earlier but there was still no will of power that had gotten them to rise out of their beds. Hermione had been lying awake for the last couple of minutes, just starting to the side out of the window. There were clear skies as far as her eye can see.

There wasn't a single cloud blocking the light blue as it spread out against the sky. Hermione could see that they weren't in Scotland anymore. There she would have seen that it would either be a day of rain or a day with no rain but still a bunch of clouds. Here she was happy to see the sky for a chance.

Next to her she had heard and left Bellatrix tossing and turning in her sleep. She wasn't the most reserved person while sleeping, but she did stay on her side of the bed. She might turn on her side from time to time, but she never rolled over onto her stomach. She was also not one of the people that would grab a blanket and then pull it all the way over herself. Waking up Hermione had even found that she had hogged the duvet overnight, but only slightly. It wasn't really in her nature to do that, but as Bellatrix wasn't aware she had just kinda slit the duvet back over her.

The dark witch had gracefully put her arm around the duvet, hugging it tight as her arm had grasped onto it. It was somewhat adorable to see the person in a position of power being so vulnerable. There was a relaxed smile on her face. If her first impression of her teacher was something like that, she wouldn't have hesitated to call her cute. But as her first impression was a stern witch that had an eye for perfection and order she was a bit taken aback when she had found her like that.

Waking up she was looking towards the door, on the far side of the bed. Looking a little lower she had been greeted by the by the most adorable smile on her professors face. It had taken her about five minutes to look away, first she had been frozen in fear. Scared that she would get catch starting at her face, Hermione had just laid there watching her breath for a bit.

When it became quite clear that there was no way that Bellatrix was waking up anytime soon. She had relaxed a little bit after that realisation. She had dared to move her body over to the other side, rolling over her back till she could look out of the window. Seeing the curtains closed she had reached for her wand and slit them open so she could look out of them.

She had been greeted by the big blue sky, the sun had already been up for a while now. There was no sound coming from the street below, but Hermione had already suspected that there was a spell cast that was keeping the sound out. Leaving the people inside the rooms undisturbed in their sleeps.

After almost dozing off again twice, Hermione decided to check the time with her wand. It was almost twenty past nine and they would have to leave around one to get the connecting portkeys all the way to Albania. Still plenty of time left she thought as she looked over to the witch that was sharing her bed. It was still a bit mental if she thought about it. It hadn't even been a week since she had first spoken about her research project, and now she was taking her across the continent on a hunch.

One that very much could be totally useless, as she had said in her letter requesting to go. She wasn't sure how it even got past Professor Black in the first place. There should have been no way that her plan would be approved. And there should have been no way that the budget commission should have approved it. she honestly didn't know what she was supposed to do when she got to Albania. Like she had proposed that communicating with the ghost, and then there would be research around the area for any hint of how he had come into possession of the information on making the horcrux itself.

But she had already decided that it was probably a waste of time. it had been over eight centuries since he had dwelled around the surroundings. She very much doubted that there was any kind of a trace left of the people that had lived back then.

She heard something next to her move, like someone was stretching out. Unlike the somewhat similar noise of someone rolling over to the others side. Bellatrix must have woken up, she concluded when she heard that.

"Morning," she offered as she sat up a bit. Looking over to where her Professor was still laying down.

"Morning," Bellatrix offered, sounding like she had been railed for the last couple of hours. Her morning voice was something to be cherished, Hermione thought as she heard it in its full glory.

Stumped for a moment, she forgot what she was saying and just stayed silent looking everywhere but towards her Professor. It had become apparent that the voice of an older woman could do to her. Especially in the morning.

Bellatrix, she either didn't notice her sudden silence or she chose to ignore it in favour to walking up very calmly. She sat up herself, showing how her nightdress had risen up during the night. It was now a bit over her middle, showing off the legs that had been hidden from the world under need the robes that Bellatrix had been wearing around the castle. It hadn't come up at all, Hermione thought as she was now granted a good and long view of them.

Being so enthralled by them she didn't catch the first time Professor Black asked her a question. When she finally managed to tear her eyes of those tights Bellatrix was on her third attempt at getting her attention.

"Hey, Hermione," she said as she waved her hand in front of her eyes, "do you know when we have to leave to get in Albania on time?" she asked as she looked past her out of the window. The sight must have surprised as she suddenly jumped out of bed. Apparently thinking that the time of leaving was earlier than was actually sooner than it actually was.

She was already moving along running off into the bathroom before Hermione had the chance to tell her that the only really needed to leave in a couple of hours, she was gone. Bellatrix was gone. Leaving the scene of the crime.

"We only need to leave in a bit…" she said to a closed door which was slammed closed. She was left sitting in her bed. She could hear the older woman franticly try to get dressed and refreshed as she was looking out of the window. The sky was still as clear as it had been a couple of minutes before. Still the light blue sky was untouched by any of the clouds that resided in it.

"You could have told me when I got out of bed," Bellatrix said as they made their way to the portkey centre. They had left the Tavern only a couple of minutes before. Bellatrix had bolted out of the bathroom, an had looked like a startled deer in the headlights. She had demanded that Hermione be quick and change so they could leave on time.

Hermione had set herself back against the backboard and had pulled out her book. Looking up as Bellatrix had called on her to get changed she explained that they had a lot of time left. And that they really weren't in a rush.

Bellatrix had stopped her frantic packing at that moment and was stopped in her tracks. "couldn't you have said that earlier."

She smiled thinking back to it, it was still a great memory to have. She now had something that she could keep close when they would be returning to the castle later on.

"Do we still have far to go?" Bellatrix asked as they were walking closer to the centre. Hermione sniffled at the question that she had been asking for the last couple of moments. There was not a moment that Bellatrix didn't use to ask if they were coming closer to the centre. You'd think that after the fifth time it would become annoying but in actuality it was more endearing to her. She could imagine Bellatrix like a cat that was curious where they might be going.

The comparison did actually work very well with her. Around people she didn't want to know in a closer capacity she cared very little about them and let the dedicated hate show through very clearly. But the people that she tolerated had an easier time getting through to her. It was like she had decided that only a couple of people were tolerable.

Of these people, which she counted herself one of, Harry might be one of the others that were tolerated, she was with little question the favourite of the bunch. But she didn't really know how far that would carry her through the many lessons that had been given to her. Professor Black seemed to be the kind of teacher that would make it harder for her to pass the class because she knew that she could do better.

But for the moment they could forget all of that because they were on their way to Albania, a place that was so far of the curriculum that she wasn't sure why they even were joining them on the way to it. Like she needed some kind of supervision, but she wasn't sure why Professor Black was on the list of people with her. So far all she had done was relax and leave most responsibilities to herself.

Approaching the portkey centre Bellatrix was about to ask it again, if they were almost there. but before she could do that Hermione pointed out the building. Bellatrix looked a bit happier, seeing the doors that would carry her all the way to the warm sun and nice climate.

As they approached the doors of the centre they were stopped by a couple of security wizards. They wanted to know who they were, were they were going and if they had committed any crimes on French soil. The answers that they gave were, Hermione Granger and Bellatrix Black, Albania via Italy, and that they hadn't broken any laws on French soil. Seemingly satisfied with those answers they were let through into a grand hall that was made of white marble. It was all filling and very bright.

Inside they found that there were a bunch of people queuing to get to specific destinations. Looking up they could see that the destinations are colour coded. The route that they were taking would need them to go through Marseille, which was indicated as a destination along the red line.

Hermione looked around and found that there was a red arrow that pointed to the stairs on the second floor. Pulling Bellatrix towards the stairs she thought that she recognised a face in the crowd that was waiting for their turn on the portkey. It was a person with a very beautiful face that she couldn't place at the moment. The platina blonde hear was also draping her face which looked very pretty.

But not having enough time to look closer she and Bellatrix made their way up the stairs towards the red line, mysteriously there was no one there to take a portkey to Marseille at that time. Hermione didn't think much of it, Marielle was a busy city but also one where there was plenty of time to hang around in. but as it was a working day they where the only people making use of the portkey.

"Name and destination?" a voice called out from behind a corner they had just approached. It sounded like the voice of an old wizard that was spending the last couple of years of his life in the public sector. Helping along the people who were less versed in the intricacies of the French public portkey system.

As she was the first to see him Hermione introduced herself first, "Hermione Granger, going to Marseille," she told him. A wizard that was older than time itself it seemed. His beard was long and white, almost like headmaster Dumbledore's was at the moment, only longer and whiter. It was a bit like she was seeing into the future of the old wizard.

"And you are?" he asked as Bellatrix turned the corner, and came into his view. Looking her ones over, his eyes closed like small slits under a door. looking her over again he leaned back a bit. "Madame Black, bienvenue sur le continent," he said in fluent French. This stopped Bellatrix in her tracts for just a second before she carried on walking past him, nodding in his direction for a curtsy. She didn't spare him a moment of her attention as she made her way to the portkey hall of the south coast of France.

This hall was a bit less white marble and more light bricks that reflected the different architecture style that was reminisant of the building style of the Provonce. There was also a slight warm sea breeze that was coming in straight from the Mediterranean. From what could be gathered from the weather was nice over there.

Walking up the helpdesk that was set up they rang the bell to call for someone to help them. The desk was laid out neatly, Hermione could see. It was like there was someone that liked to keep things in order. She could appreciate the work effort that being up forward. She was curious who would be the person that would greet them here.

When she heard a door opening from the side, both she and Bellatrix turned to the side. There, coming out of a backdoor was an older woman. About her mid-fifties if Bellatrix had to guess, around her age if not a bit older. The smiled brightly as she approached the desk. Her clothing showed that she cared about her presentation, it was immaculate and there was hardly anything to be noted on it.

"How can I help you?" she asked as she sat down behind her desk. Placing her wand in a spot that had been empty before but now it was filled up very nicely. All the spots now had something in it that was organised to a tee.

"We are traveling to Marseille," Bellatrix said before Hermione had the chance to speak for her. she didn't want to have that happen again. Now she was taking her own fait in her hands. She didn't want to be under the supervision of someone that was considerably younger than her. there was also the notion of taking back the power as she had kinda lost it by sleeping in the same bed as her student.

"Marseille, your in luck," she said as she turned over a couple of pages checking the departure times. There was a blank page when she finally got to the Marseille page, it was like no one wanted to go to the city at the sea.

"If you would follow me?" she asked as she pulled out a key and started making her way to the doors on the side of the room. "You know you are the first people who are going there today, if I think about it, you're even the first people who are going there all week. I wonder what is going on there?" she asked as she opened the door as they were let inside.

Inside of the room there was a small pillar with an small object onto op it. It was essentially a chain that was made so as many people as possible could take the ports key at a time. But with only two of them they had a lot of space to take a hold of the chain. Looking over to the older woman's she asked, "how long till we get on our way?" Bellatrix asked her they stood there.

"I would say that it will be hap…"

And she was gone, they were pulled through the magical medium that was over as soon as they two witches had gotten used to it. popping out on the other side there was a great view of the sea.

The room where they were received in Marseille was empty, spare for a couple of chairs that were placed next to the entrance. Looking round Bellatrix didn't see any movement, or instructions. There was just the door on one side and the big window in front of her that showed the sea that was on the edge of the city.

"Where is everyone?" Hermione asked as she stood up, having been thrown to the ground by the portkey. She was now looking closer to the floor seemingly having found a detail that Bellatrix had missed.

"Bellatrix?" She asked her as she made her way to one of the walls, the girl had obviously seen something that was of major importance.

"What have you found?" she asked as she walked over to her, she still wasn't seeing what there was supposed to be. As she reached the girl, Hermione turned on her feet and held up her finger. It had become a little more dirty then it should be. Not that she kept trac of the general cleanliness of her student, she had just been aware of it as it had held the book Hermione had been reading as she had stormed out of the bathroom.

"There is dust on the floor," Said as if there was a grand revelation in that statement. To Bellatrix, Hermione had just said that there was a some dust on the floor. Where dust usually lived.

"Are you telling me that the house elves have put their work down?" she asked, wondering what the other witch was on a about.

"No, no Professor," she started looking around for a moment, "this place is completely entrenched by magic. So there shouldn't be any dust that would be able to settle on the floor. There are a bunch of charms that would keep these halls nice and clean. But here none of them were active. It was like someone had dispelled all the charms in the vicinity." She ended as there was a low growl coming from far inside of the building. Nothing too loud to worry about but certainly something to keep tabs on.

Bellatrix looked over to the door as she heard it, already being in the mindset of her role as Professor of the Defence against the dark arts. It was her role and duty to get her students safely home again. Now in a place where she didn't know the parameters of how things had gone, there was a kind of urgency of how things were panning out.

"okay, let's first get a hold on the situation and let's go from there Bellatrix said confidently," not wanting to let panic spread under the other people. The other people was now only Hermione but out of training she still stayed on the multitude of people that needed to be calmed. Her being in a panic on the inside did little to help them in the situation.

Hermione nodded as she made clear that they would be going towards the door that was the way out of the room. They would have to make a move through there and see what was waiting for them behind the door. as they walked past the window again. Bellatrix noticed something odd, there was no real movement outside of it, in the distance she could see the waves crashing into the beach. But looking at the city there was no movement happening. Noting that in the back of her mind, she moved Hermione along to the door.

Arriving there she stopped them and she leaned against the door. It gave way, 'not locked,' she thought as she waved Hermione to stand next to her against the wall. If something was gonna be blasting through the door, there was a relatively small chance that the first spell would have the range to hit them from there. So shielding her Student she slowly moved over to the door and pushed it open. There was no light to be seen in the hallway. It was as dark as the night, if there was no moon in a cave that had been sealed from the beginning of time.

Motioning that she would be moving into the hall and that Hermione should not follow till she had given her the signal. Seeing the girl agree, she made her mind up. There could be many things out there. Some of which she couldn't prepare herself for. But she was a Black. There was nothing that could stop the most Ancient and Pure house of Black.

Breathing out she left the relative safety of the room and stepped into the hallway. As she had seen already, it was dark. Not a person should be able to see in this kind of circumstances. But luckily there were spells that would help out with a lot of small troubles. Like seening in the dark was something that could easily be done, but the use of the spell was prohibited, as it would be too easy to just cast that on yourself and rob a place blind in the dark of night than when they would need to bring some kind of light with them.

She casted the incantations and made sure to do it right, the downside of prohibited charms was that there was a very strict way of casting them. She was always on point when she tried to use it. So after a moment she got pretty confident that it had worked and she opened her eyes.

Before her was the same dark hallway, but for now there was also a lined out version that was on top of it. So she could see what was going on.

At first glance there were a couple of chairs that were thrown about in the hallway, nothing out of the ordinary for an abandoned building. Well the out of the ordinary part was many that it was supposed to be a working portkey network hub. So there should be people here, especially as there hadn't been any notice given to other's that there was a problem here.

Bellatrix looked back towards the room where they had entered. She could see Hermione standing there, waiting for a signal she didn't want to give at any point. There was no need, she would do the recon deal with the possible threat and then would go back to fetch her student. It was a plan that couldn't fail. The only thing that was standing in her way was the unknown and there was something out there that had stopped the operations here in a major way.

There was also the possibility that she could find her end in here, she realised. This had been a metropole of wizards and witches before it was rudely stopped in it's track, probably a week ago if she remembered the older witch from a few moment earlier. It was a curious case that in her previous profession there would have been some interest into what might have happened.

Now though she was sneaking from wall to wall, staying in the out coves where the doors where. She had her wand firmly grasped in her hand letting nothing distract her. She needed to be alert to all the normal things and also the abnormal. Like a chair that was knocked over was not that out of place, it might had been knocked over as the building was deserted. The moist ceiling was a more curious case.

In all of the halls that she had been in there had been no trace of water. No puddles on the floor, the air even felt dry when she breathed it in. but when she turned the last corner there was a collection of water droplets stuck to the ceiling. It was like someone had showered for a long time in an unventilated room. Walking up the where the line of water on the ceiling started, Bellatrix peered into the far side of the hallway.

There was nothing there she concluded. There were no tables, chairs or even paintings on the wall like there had been before in other hallways she had looked in and walked past. It was a bit unclear whether it was by design or if it was done on purpose or if it was a coincident. Checking the Time with her watch she saw that she had been gone from the girl for at least ten or more minutes. She wasn't sure if it was a bad idea to just walk bad, get her and then try to find an exit.

When she was about to turn back, there was that sound again. only this time it was more pronounced. Like it had come closer, or in this case like Bellatrix had been closing in on it. Wand in hand she looked over to where she had heard the noise. It was to her left down another hallway, that when she looked a little closer in a large open space.

'That's not where I'm going,' she thought as she backed away to the previous more or less safe point. She still hadn't seen a living or dead person there yet so there was some hope left in the world. A screech could be heard from a bit farther away than last time.

'Let's not risk it She said as the started with backing away from her current location. It was a pretty direct shot she recalled, she didn't take that many corners to get here. From the entrance she had taken the fifth left, then the second left and the fourth left. 'Easy peasy lemon squeezy,' she thought as she made her way to the fourth crossing of corridors. Like she remembered there was a red chair in the middle. Marking the right that she had to take.

The next turn she had to take was visible from where she was standing, there was just the empty corridor on a T-point.

"Creak," a sound could be heard through the hallway. Bellatrix stopped her retreat in place. Not making a sound herself she tried to listen where it might have come from. When no new noises happened she carried on walking. Making sure she left no trace she started magickly wiping her own tracs of the floor as she advanced. Anyone that would be following her would be very confused in the way a single person that wasn't there had walked in a circle a couple of corridors back.

The next turn she had to take was the easy one, she just had to look where the light was coming from, even when the girl had closed the doors, they didn't make a perfect seal, so light was free to pass through it. more confidence was in her step as she, no longer sneaking back, walked in the direction of the final change of direction. Taking a right she immediately saw the light shining through, during her time in the dark her eyes had become extremely focused on the slightest amount of light. And now it was so eagerly given, her eyes more or less overexposed her vision.

It took a couple of seconds before she was seeing without a bunch of black spots in her vision. Standing there with her eyes half closed looking in the direction of the light, but not at it, she quickly regained her sight. The darkness around her deepened and if it wasn't for that spell that showed her the outlines, She would have walked into a lot more stuff on her way back to Hermione.

Watching the older witch walk out of the room, Hermione hard looked at her back as she disappeared in the shadows beyond. It became clear that there was no way that Bellatrix was coming back to get her till she had cleared the place out herself. Hermione was actually kinda glad that she was going to be left in relative safety. Even though she had at least four decent defence against the dark arts professors they had spent relatively little amount of time on the practical parts of the class.

Her ability was one of the few areas that she was not that confident in. the whole side of spellcasting was a bit hazy in her mind. The last time she had actually really put a lot of time in spellcasting was for the OWLS that they had to take in their fifth year. She had passed all of them with flying colours. But she had been losing her technique a little since last year the teacher had put them through a manly a very theoretical course, leaving the practical part for the next teacher to come around.

He had been lucky that the next teacher was Bellatrix as she was focusing more on wand work she had heard. She hadn't seen it herself as technically their second lesson would be happening today. But at the moment her teacher was taking them on a trip to Albania for a research project that she wasn't even sure would work out. But now they were here, in Marseille stranded in an abandoned portkey hub.

An abandoned portkey hub, where her teacher was now going through and she was stuck behind the safety of the entrance room. In a place where all if not some of the protective layers had been stripped away. This room had jet to fall to the darkness that was going on inside of the hallways. Here the sun was shining, the weather was lovely. Only a couple of white sport marked the sky, as if they were small sheep floating up there. 'they would more likely be ginormous sheep,' she thought as her logical brain started to evaluate the situation.

Looking back at the door, she was conflicted. Professor Black had been quite clear that she didn't want Hermione to move a single foot from this room till she was able to guaranty that there was no more danger lurking around. It would be a while before she could have done that so, for the moment she was stuck here in a padded room where no harm would befall her. whatever that would mean in a place where obviously something terrible had happened. 'But no, she was not allowed to follow along in her footsteps,' she huffed in her mind.

"it's not like they'll would be doing her any good here she was just sitting to be gotten by whatever might have been trashing around in the building. It might even be coming for her now, she wondered looking with some fear in the back of her mind at the door. it was just a very nice wooden door that would be no barrier to the outside world.

Hermione got up to the door to cast a couple of protective barriers, to keep her mind a bit on the side of saneness. The barriers glimmered in the sunlight that was still coming in from behind her shoulder. The sun had risen a little more and the dustiness was more presentable. Now there was a real barrier between her and them.

Approaching the door Bellatrix noticed that there were some big gashes on the doors, they were worse for wear now that they had been when she left to discover what was out there. Suddenly she realised that there was a possibility that her student was not in there anymore. The door had looked closed from a distance but now she saw that they were just leaning on the side of the door frame. Sagged in and on top of on another Bellatrix saw that they had been fractured in the middle.

Standing almost ten feet before the room entrance she was able to look into the room. What had been a mostly prestige room was now covered in a bunch of dirt and slime. She didn't see any red though so that was good, whatever it might have been it was not the insides of her student. Walking closer so she was able to touch the doors she stopped. Suddenly she wasn't sure what was going on in her, didn't she want to know what was happening to her student.

She had promised the headmaster that she would be responsible for the people that she was taking on this fieldtrip. In other words, she had promised to bring Hermione back to the school unsaved. But now she was unsure what to do, would she lock in the actions that she had undertaken or would she leave it vague and have someone come in a get the answer independently. So she didn't have to deal with it anymore.

"Urgh," a sound came from in the room. Something or someone was still breathing and living, id sounded human to say the least so the chance that it was Hermione were quite high.

Looking at the ground she lifted her wand and disintegrated the doors. She was not here to make an explosive entrance. If the person making the noise inside was not of her most dear student she would not be giving them an opportunity to catch her of guard.

Holding her wand pointed outwards she walked slowly up to the lip of the room and pressed her wand just past where the border of the room would be. Casting a small spell that was used to slow things down. But now she would be using it to give herself an speed advancement.

Letting the magic fly free, she waited a second. Letting the spell really grab a hold of the things that were in the room. Playing around with time was not the best way of dealing with problems but she had to be creative. The worst case Hermione was being held hostage she told herself.

Not wanting to imagine the unthinkable, she was not even going to pretend that Hermione might be in a more permanent state of being. That was not something that she could get through her mind. No, there was no way that she had let that happen to her.

Walking past the barrier she found the room, spare for a new helpdesk that was thrown against the wall. Like it had been when she had first arrived. Only this time it was much, much more dirty. Not only was there a ginormous smear on the wall. She found also a little part of the wall was smeared with some red. It was spread out in a splatter about chest height. She moved across the room to inspect the desk that was kinda splintered around the edges.

"Urgh," the sound was now heard again. coming from inside of the cove that he desk made with the wall. Bellatrix leaned forward to inspect the underside of the desk. There she found the girl, bludgeon and beaten up.

"Bella?"


End file.
